‘Can I ask where you learned about vasectomies?’
‘I read about it online.’
‘Then you know that it is illegal in this country.’
‘It is? Why can’t we do it here? I hear it’s a safe, quick ten-minute procedure.’
‘Not in this country.’
‘But I want to share the burden of contraception. I want to take control of my own fertility.’
‘No,’ the stout woman on the right says.
‘What do you mean, no?’
‘You’re not allowed.’
‘Says who?’
‘The law.’
He feels the anger rising.
‘Forgive Mary, she is very passionate about this subject,’ the woman in the centre says gently. ‘When you say you couldn’t cope with more children, do you mean you would feel suicidal?’
‘No!’ he exclaims.
‘Oh. Shame,’ she tut-tuts. ‘Well, I’m afraid that’s the only circumstance under which we could have performed your vasectomy today.’
‘Or if the sperm that was being ejaculated from your penis was about to kill you,’ the skinny one on the left adds.
He looks at her, alarmed. ‘Can that happen?’
‘Thank you, Amanda,’ the woman in the centre places a calming hand on her colleague’s arm. ‘Mr Smith, have you thought about your moral responsibilities to your sperm?’
His eyes widen. ‘A sperm is not a life.’
There’s a sharp intake of breath from Mary.
‘The science of embryology and genetics makes clear that human life begins at fertilization,’ the man says, angry now.
‘Could your wife have had your two children without your sperm?’ Mary asks.
‘No. Of course not.’
‘Well, then. Without sperm, life is not possible. With sperm, comes the creation of life. You cannot annihilate the creation of life,’ Mary says.
‘And what about your lack of thought for the sperm? Why deny your sperm its right to life?’ Amanda, on the left, asks.
‘It’s my right to choose what I do with my sperm,’ he answers, angry now.
‘I know it’s difficult to understand, but your reproductive rights are our business,’ the woman in the centre replies.
‘This is ridiculous,’ he stands up, shouting. ‘Whether you personally agree with it or not is beside the point! You can’t make a decision about my body, based on your personal opinions. IT’S MY SEMEN! THEY ARE MY TESTICLES!’ he roars, red in the face, the veins in his neck pulsating.
There is a pregnant pause.
‘These are not our personal opinions,’ the woman says softly, so as not to rile him again. ‘It’s the law. That makes it different.’
‘But it’s ridiculous,’ he protests. ‘It’s my … how can you …’ he scrambles for the words. ‘You can’t tell a man what he can do with his body,’ he says. ‘I’ve never heard anything like it in my life. It’s … unprecedented.’
The woman in the centre raises her eyebrow.
‘Why didn’t you tell me this over the phone?’ he explodes.
‘I’d imagine whoever you spoke to told you to come in because it’s illegal to give advice over the phone. It must be face-to-face.’
‘You’re supposed to counsel me, not try to talk me out of it … I’m going to report you. Anyway, I don’t care what you say, I’m getting on a plane and I’ll fly to any of the hundreds of countries of the world where it’s legal to carry out the procedure safely, every day.’
Amanda, on the left, shakes her head. ‘Oh dear.’
‘You shouldn’t have told us that,’ the woman in the centre says. ‘We may be obligated to alert the authorities, and they can impose a restraining order on you, preventing you from travelling.’
‘What the hell?!’
‘But if you do manage to go, without alerting the authorities, when you return,’ she offers, ‘please do contact us and we would be delighted to provide free post-vasectomy medical check-ups and counselling services.’
Mary looks over his shoulder, ‘Evelyn’s there again.’
He turns around.
He sees a woman with a placard, upon which is a detailed photo of a penis. SAVE SEMEN.
‘That’s disgusting,’ he spits.
‘So crude,’ the woman in the centre agrees.
‘In broad daylight,’ the stout woman adds.
‘And so close to a school,’ the skinny one says.
‘Sperm is a better word,’ the woman in the centre says.
‘Certainly better than cum,’ the stout one replies.
‘And boner milk,’ the skinny one adds.
The man looks at them wide-eyed, unable to believe what he’s hearing. He gives the three women a last look, and leaves the clinic, passing by the silent protestor.
‘It’s my body,’ he shouts at her. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you!’
She reverses the placard. A wonderfully detailed image of a pair of testicles, and above, Guard the Gonads.
‘Excuse me!’ she calls to the clerk at the desk below her.
The clerk doesn’t answer. She’s incredibly busy sending papers flying at top speed into the cubbyholes that surround her, everything instantly categorized according to colour, subject, or topic.
‘Yoohoo!’ the woman sings, waving her arms.
The clerk either ignores her or cannot hear her from where she is crammed into a square on top of the bureau. She squirms and tries to move her arms and her legs, but she’s jammed.
‘Excuse me!’ she yells at the clerk, who won’t look at her. ‘I don’t belong in here, let me out!’
The clerk continues to file away paperwork in all of the squares around her.
She’s insulted that she has been confined to the box. She is so much more than this one box – she could have been placed in plenty of boxes, she is many of those other things too.
‘She won’t listen to you,’ a voice comes from beneath her.
She looks down.
‘Hi,’ the woman squished into a box a few rows down says. ‘Janet. Single mother. Can’t finish what I start.’
‘Hi, Janet,’ she says.
‘I play the ukulele too, but a certain person doesn’t seem to care about that,’ Janet says, raising her voice so that the clerk below can hear. There’s no reaction.
‘Ha! Well, I’m the wild crazy mother, nice to meet you,’ says another woman from the far corner. The woman looks down diagonally to her right.
‘Hi,’ she says.
‘I get out once a fortnight, and when I do, boy, do I drink,’ she says. ‘And dance, so that makes me wild, apparently. So crazy! Watch out, it’s dangerous Mary who likes too much gin!’ she shouts down to the clerk, her words dripping with sarcasm.
The clerk is still wildly sorting through paperwork, not paying the slightest notice to those who have been filed away.
‘I also play tennis,’ Mary adds. ‘I like adult colouring books and walks on the beach, but she doesn’t care about that, does she?’
The woman hears a snort and peeps into the pigeonhole beside her.
A woman, who is filing her nails, looks up. ‘Hi, I’m Brooke. I’m shy.’ She leans over the edge and throws her nail file at the clerk, who doesn’t react. She sighs.
‘Hello from the helicopter mom!’ a woman shouts from somewhere in the pigeonhole.
‘Hello, helicopter mom, meet soccer mom!’ another voice calls from the other direction. ‘One minute I’m a stupid woman who cares nothing about world issues and who is going to kill everyone in my path to make sure my child succeeds, and then I’m baking cookies!’
They all laugh.
‘I’m odd.’ The woman hears a new voice. She looks down and sees a hand waving from a pigeonhole.
‘Hey.’
‘I’m a working mum who’s selfish and hates my kids!’ a voice adds suddenly, and they all laugh.
A pair of hands high-five across the pigeonholes.
‘I’m a fa
t woman. Nothing else!’ a woman asserts, to groans.
‘I’m an exercise buff who judges other people’s lifestyles,’ another says.
‘I’m a fat woman who exercises,’ someone says and they cheer.
‘I’m the woman whose husband had an affair.’
‘I’m the evil woman who had an affair with somebody else’s husband!’ another shouts out.
‘Nicola Nagle, is that you?’
‘Nope.’
‘Thank God for that.’
The women laugh.
‘Daddy issues!’
‘Control freak.’
‘Flirt!’
‘Pestering mother-in-law.’
‘Sly!’
‘Do-gooder, but if only they knew the truth.’
They oooh in unison.
‘Second wife.’
‘Third wife.’
‘Bunny-boiler.’
‘Bossy.’
‘Liar!’
‘Victim.’
‘Survivor.’
‘Vain!’
‘Materialistic!’
‘WAG!’
‘Mother Earth!’
‘Wife!’
‘Mother!’
‘Motherless wife!’
‘Husbandless woman!’
‘Junkie.’
‘Superiority complex.’
‘Subversive!’
‘Feminist man-hater!’
‘Slut!’
‘Lipstick lesbian!’
They all laugh and settle in silence for a moment as they take a break from shouting out their labels.
‘It’s just easier,’ the clerk says suddenly, breaking the silence, and looking up at the enormous pigeonholes before her.
‘What’s easier?’ the woman asks.
‘It’s like a headline. When you read further you see the content. When people meet you, they’ll realize who you are.’
‘But they won’t meet us if they don’t like the headline,’ the woman replies, to general agreement. ‘And headlines are always out of context.’
Everyone throws something at the clerk from their pigeonhole. She ducks for cover, then re-emerges with a bicycle helmet on for protection.
‘Look, don’t blame me, I’m just doing my job. It’s easier this way, trust me.’
‘Easier for whom? For you?’ the woman asks.
‘Well, yes. For me and for everybody else. Because then they’ll know where to find you, how to think of you. I’ll know where to reach for you when they come looking. It’s efficient.’
‘But I don’t belong here! I’m a little bit of many of these boxes,’ the woman explains. ‘You are stopping me from reaching my highest potential.’ She squirms around in the box uncomfortably.
‘Exactly!’ somebody else agrees. ‘I’m a fat feminist man-hating slut. I should be in at least four boxes!’
They all laugh.
‘So should I chop you up and separate your body parts?’ the clerk asks.
‘No! Don’t be ridiculous. Just let us out,’ the woman says. ‘Don’t bother putting us in these pigeonholes at all.’
‘And then what? I’d just have you all in a big pile on the counter. Nobody would know what you are.’
‘People could look through the pile and decide for themselves.’
The clerk snorts. ‘Clarity. Everybody wants clarity. To know what they’re getting before they get it. Look around!’
They look around and they’re surrounded by hundreds, thousands, millions of pigeonholes just like theirs, all of them occupied, while the dedicated clerk wildly sifts through paperwork.
‘How about they take the time to figure us out once they meet us?’
‘Too much work. People like to be told.’
‘I don’t like to be told,’ the woman says, hitting the ceiling above her, wishing she had more space. ‘I like to discover things for myself, form my own opinion, and then I’ll still know that it’s only my opinion and not an actual fact.’
‘You’re rare.’
‘Exactly. But this isn’t the rare box.’
‘It’s better to just round you off to the nearest,’ the clerk tries to reason with them.
‘I don’t want that.’
‘Haven’t you ever heard of the Pygmalion effect? Where higher expectations lead to higher performance and the inverse Golem effect where lower expectations lead to lower performance. You’re doing everybody here a disservice by labelling us by our needs and risks, as opposed to our strengths and assets.’
‘Not all the boxes are negative. There’s a funny box.’
‘But I want to be taken seriously,’ a voice calls out from the funny box.
The clerk ignores them and goes back to filing.
But the woman doesn’t give up. The pigeonhole is making her hot and irritated. ‘If somebody is looking for me as I truly am, then they won’t find me here. You’re fooling people. And you’re making those who would actually like me, miss out on me.’
‘Perhaps. But it makes the paperwork less complicated.’
‘What about what I want?’
‘Stop being difficult.’
‘I’m not in a difficult or rare pigeonhole,’ she says, fuming. ‘That’s two things you’ve called me that my label doesn’t even say that I am.’ She folds her arms in a huff, sits back, and watches as the clerk files the entire world away.
‘You know what you are?’ someone shouts at the clerk, from above her. ‘You’re nothing but a pigeonholer!’ she shouts.
At that, they all start laughing.
The clerk stops filing and looks up at them, her face raging. ‘Who said that?’
‘Me,’ replies the shy one.
‘Well, now you have to get out of there, because that wasn’t very shy.’
‘Where do I go?’
‘Difficult pigeonhole. Third column fifth down.’
The once shy but now difficult woman swings out of her pigeonhole and uses the ladders running up and down the cube to climb across to her new box.
A new clerk arrives to take over, dressed in the same beige trousers and shirt.
‘Head office says you have to stop now and move to B1.’
‘B1?’ the clerk blurts out with anger.
‘What’s B1?’ a woman calls down.
‘Don’t be so nosy,’ the clerk replies.
‘I’m not nosy. I’m menopausal.’
‘B1 is the pigeonholer box,’ the new clerk explains apologetically.
‘But that’s ridiculous. I was only being efficient!’
The new clerk shrugs. ‘Sorry, just obeying orders.’
The clerk places her papers down and reluctantly makes her way to the pigeonhole. She sits inside and folds her arms. ‘You know I thought that if this was ever to happen to me that I’d be in the artist box. I love painting.’
‘Welcome to the team,’ the woman says. She bangs the roof above her and suddenly it shifts. She removes the shelf and reads the label on the front. Tenacious. She chuckles and sits up more comfortably in her larger box, and kicks at the wall beside her. Thankfully the box is empty and the wall gives way, allowing her legs to rest in libertine.
She’d been driving aimlessly along winding country roads when she first spotted the woman walking along the side of the road ahead of her. The pedestrian was holding a basket, appeared to be in her own world and didn’t even look up as the car approached, despite the fact it was probably the first vehicle to pass her in hours. The woman driving, in truth, was bored and needed company. She also needed a co-pilot because, although she had her destination firmly in sight, she had absolutely no idea how to get where she wanted to go.
Pulling her car over just beyond the woman, she waits for her to catch up. As she nears the car, the woman lowers the window but the pedestrian keeps on walking, looking straight ahead, as if in a zombie state. She suspects that, if she hadn’t called out, the pedestrian would have continued right on by.
‘Hello!’ she raises her voice, leaning ou
t the window.
The pedestrian snaps out of her trance and stops walking. She turns and seems surprised to see the car by the road where she has just walked. ‘Oh hello,’ she says, taking steps back.
‘Would you like a lift?’ the woman asks.
‘Oh thank you very much,’ the pedestrian says gently, smiling. ‘But I’m happy to make my own way. Thank you though, how kind.’
Her response annoys the woman in the car. It annoys her that this woman wants to be alone, and even worse, she seems so happy to be walking alone.
‘Are you lost?’ the pedestrian asks, concerned, and the woman in the car decides not to tell her. She knows where she wants to go, she’s just having difficulty getting there, it doesn’t mean that she’s lost. She is aiming for the top of the mountain.
‘Are you going to the top of the mountain?’ the woman in the car asks.
‘Oh,’ the pedestrian looks up as if taken aback to see the enormously tall mountain in front of them. ‘Maybe!’ she laughs. ‘I suppose I’ll find out if I get there, I’m just enjoying each step of the journey.’
Again this response annoys the woman in the car who is so desperately trying to reach her destination, she can’t understand that anybody wouldn’t have the same goal. She tries to steal a glimpse of the contents of her basket but the pedestrian senses this and moves the basket away.
Irritated, the driver starts the car and they part ways with a final exchange of pleasantries.
It is the look of determination on the pedestrian’s face, the confidence in her walk, the secrecy over the contents of her basket, this contradiction of blasé-ness that compels her to watch her in the wing mirror as she drives on. But she is so focused on what the pedestrian is doing that she drives off the road and into a ditch. The last thing she sees as her front left tyre dips into the rut is the pedestrian cutting into a neighbouring field and disappearing from view. This is incredibly frustrating. She wants to know where she is going, what is in her basket. She’d been hoping to keep her in sight in her rear-view, trail her from ahead, as it were.
Unable to drive the car out of the ditch, and unable to push it out, she stands stranded on a quiet country lane, miles from anyone or anything. Even worse, she has no signal on her phone. She is lost, tired, confused and rather desperate by the time she hears the sound of horses’ hooves coming in her direction.
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