z

Young Writers Society


16+

Mother and Father Part Six (Jigoku Shoujo The Saved and the Damned)

by Songmorning


Warning: This work has been rated 16+.

After it was over, Lucy stepped outside into a cold drizzle. She felt terrible, but not the same kind of terrible as before the abortion. No, this was much worse. She felt empty. She felt like a piece of her soul had been torn from her.

She felt like a mother who had lost her child.

Hardly conscious of her surroundings, she stumbled over to Holly’s car. The windows on the car were rolled down, and as she came closer, she thought she heard crying. Standing next to the door, she looked in through the window and saw Holly with her face in her hands, sobbing heedlessly. “Why? Why did I let this happen?” she wept, “Oh, God, it’s my fault! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

Lucy opened the door and got in, closing it behind her. Quickly, Holly looked up. “L-Lucy…”

“I saw his hand,” Lucy said dully, “When they sucked him out of me…I saw…his hand.” Suddenly, all her emptiness converged into one, violent stab of pain, and she let out an awful wail. “Oh, Holly, what have I done?” she cried. This was much worse, so much worse than the pain she had experienced before the abortion. Before this, she hadn’t believed in a Hell, but now she did, and it opened wide before her, accusing her mercilessly, showing her her guilt. “I want my baby back, I want him back!” she sobbed, collapsing into tears.

Holly leaned over and hugged her friend, burying her face in Lucy’s shoulder. “It will be okay, Lucy,” she whispered, but her tears were soaking Lucy’s shirt.

“How? How can it ever be okay after this?” Lucy demanded.

“Jesus forgave you,” Holly replied, “And He forgave me too. And God saved your baby—I know He did.”

Fresh tears welled up in Lucy’s eyes, and she believed what Holly said. These tears were of a different kind. They were tears of gratitude, and of release. All at once, her guilt was gone, though the pain of a bereaved mother still remained. Leaning her head against Holly’s, she wept freely. For a long time, the two girls cried together as the rain fell down from heaven. It was as though God wept for them as well, and wept for the child who had been lost that day.

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Tue Dec 22, 2015 1:56 am
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BluesClues wrote a review...



Sorry, I can’t shut up about Holly. So I also love that Holly doesn’t go, “I can’t believe you actually went through with that, you $@&%!!!” I love that she’s like, “Look, I know you’re forgiven for this, and I know your baby is going to Heaven,” rather than the view that is more typically flagged about where they’re like, “You are all MURDERERS and you’re GOING TO HELL and how could you do this your baby can’t even go to heaven because it was never born and baptized and its original sin is still there so it’s in PURGATORY FOREVER” (well, okay, only Catholics would say Purgatory forever because Protestants don’t believe in Purgatory and actually most Catholics these days don’t believe in Purgatory either, but that’s beside the point).

Anyway, it was nice.

Although I have to wonder something about this. So Lucy obviously isn’t showing yet—I recall her mentioning that in a previous chapter, that if she let it go too long then she would show a baby bump. The baby bump typically appears in 12 to 16 weeks (that’s 3 to 4 months, although it can be sooner if it’s not your first). So Lucy must be less than 12 weeks along.

Let’s be generous and say she’s at 10 weeks, which is pretty darned close to showing. This is the very beginning of the fetal period, the baby is about an inch long…

So I have to wonder how Lucy would have actually seen the baby’s hand.

Spoiler! :
Not to mention the fact that this form of abortion takes about a minute total, and the mother would never see any part of the fetus because of how it’s done.

Unless the doctors were super sloppy and inconsiderate, I guess.

Plus suction abortion can only be performed less than 14 weeks after the start of the mother’s last period, which is around two weeks before ovulation and thus probably about two weeks before conception, so 10 weeks might even be a generous estimate although I am completely aware that I’m way overthinking this whole thing.

I feel like the hand thing was added in to make it more depressing or powerful or really make her feel awful, but we already know she actually wanted to keep the baby but just felt like this was her only option. So I don’t think we really need it.

If you wanted something more dramatic, Lucy could be farther along, but I know she has concerns about showing her pregnancy…plus if she’s not showing yet, Paul has no way of knowing whether or not she’s gone through with this unless she tells him.

Yikes, the emotional effects seem far worse later on, too, although if you actually want the child but feel like you just can’t have it then it’s going to be emotionally draining at any stage of pregnancy.

Wow, the research I just did just made me a hundred percent sure I could not get an abortion ever, unless maybe I already had a couple of kids and the choice was “have an abortion or die” and I didn’t want to make orphans of my current kids or else a single parent of their father.


ANYWAY. That was something to consider, anyway. Because as soon as the hand came up, since I knew she wasn’t showing yet, I was like, “Are you sure you would actually be able to see a hand…?” Mostly because my sister (whose name is also Lucy, but she is married and is having a baby on purpose) is pregnant right now and is quite a bit along and has been posting ultrasounds on Facebook and basically we’re all like, “What an adorable little…kidney bean!” because that’s about what you can see at various points throughout the pregnancy.

I feel like I just went way too in-depth with that, which is why I went back and added a spoiler, but I hope it helped. On to the next chapter, anyhow.

BlueAfrica




Songmorning says...


Thanks for the facts~! I can take out the hand and maybe add some other detail from the actual abortion...

Also, I'm glad to see that this story is having the affect on you that I was trying to create. Interestingly, the other reader who reviewed this felt more for Paul, so it's fascinating to see where different people are coming from in reading this.



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Sun Oct 25, 2015 1:36 am
Chaser wrote a review...



Oh my.

Well, the plot's a big part of this. Spiritual writing is a touchy subject, but I'll try my best as a fellow Christian to handle it respectfully. First off, everything the characters say and do has sound logic behind it. Except, regretfully, the part where the mention of Jesus' forgiveness fixes everything. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it doesn't make sense. I'm saying that it happens too soon. It's just the one phrase, and suddenly everything's better. Now, Lucy's been built up as a determined and stubborn character, so it's kind of strange to see her change this drastically. She'd probably come up with a reasonable counter-argument for Holly to overcome before she'd truly accept it. Remember, easy victories are worthless, so make this, the focal point of the story, count for all that it's worth.

As for style, I'd like a bit more showing here, as opposed to telling. Let the reader infer Lucy's mental state in the beginning. Does she stumble a bit? Is the rain numb to her face? Refraining from saying it directly might let the reader feel the full horror as they come to the inevitable conclusion. How did she feel physically after the abortion? The metaphor of God's tears was beautiful, by the way.
Nitpicks: Try to find a different word for pain. And while "her her" isn't grammatically incorrect, it's just not very pleasing to look at.

As for characters, they all hold up well, except for Lucy in some part. But that all just ties into the plot, so it's nothing that can't be fixed easily. It's a hollow victory to see Lucy defeated, even though she's technically the antagonist here. Which is good, as I explained previously. It's merely an opinion, but I think the characters are using the full potential of their genre here.

Overall, it's a great piece of buildup which temporarily distracts the reader with a tragic moment. But it seems that Paul might come in to change that. So, I'll be off to review the next segment. Cheers!


-Chaser





The first draft is a trip to the amusement park. The next drafts are returning there as a safety inspector.
— SunsetTree