3 A Startling Object

The girl walked briskly towards the refuse dump in the early hours of the morning. Clara was her name. In her hands, wrapped in a black polythene bag, was a startling object.

Like most young girls, Clara has been warned about the dangers of pre-marital sex and teenage pregnancy but she had cast the warnings aside.

Clara was a pretty girl, amply endowed in the right places and she had caught the eyes of many men from young guys to old men. She had soon turned it into a lucrative business, offering the highest bidder her body for a while before she caught a larger prey.

The thoughts of pregnancy had never crossed her mind because she took adequate precautions or so she thought. She always ensured to take contraceptives after the deed.

However, one fateful night Clara had been drunk out of her mind and had forgotten to take her usual dosage of contraceptive pills. Her mistake of that night produced an alarming result.

A month after that night, she missed her period. She managed to conceal the nausea and other symptoms from her parents and went to a pharmacy to purchase a pregnancy testing kit. Clara followed the instructions indicated on the kit, waited out the allotted time and checked.

With her heart in her mouth, she discovered that the pregnancy test read positive. Clara also went to see a local midwife who confirmed the fact. She was one month pregnant.

Now, the solution to her predicament lay in her hands. Clara contacted a trusted friend who provided her with the address of a doctor who specialized in terminating pregnancies. She got dressed and went to the place. The building looked rundown and inside, she found a man with bushy hair dressed in a shabby lab coat.

Clara stated her mission and he prescribed a load of drugs for her which cost a fortune. He had assured her that that was the safest way she could get rid of the baby.

Now, two months later, Clara was still taking the the medications but today, she had taken the last of the drugs. The man had clearly stated that the drugs were the last thing she was to take in the night before going to bed. She slept immediately after taking them.

In the early hours of the next day, Clara awoke with a sharp pain in her abdomen. She quickly hurried to the toilet and raised her nightdress up to find blood pouring from her body. Then suddenly, an object dropped down. It was that object which she was currently carrying in a polythene bag to be disposed off in the refuse dump.

The object in the bag was the bloody foetus that had started taking shape in her womb.