News of Your Abortion

There is a man shouting outside in the street. I can see him if I
press my face up close to the glass. He is wearing a suit and tie - a
good suit and tie, he has money, you can tell - and holding a suitcase
and umbrella in one hand (the long raven black umbrella held between
thumb and index finger, the handle of the case resting in the palm over
the remaining three fingers) - the hand he is raising, as if to flag a
cab.

But he is not flagging a cab. He is shouting. There are crowds around
him, scores of people making their way from point A to point B. But he
is not moving. He is transfixed, rooted to the spot, a hand holding a
briefcase and umbrella held in the air. He is a weather vane. He is a
lightning conductor, despite the fact of the shining sun.

I can't tell at first what he is saying - I am only aware of the tone.
The pain. The sense that he is vocalising something primordial and
wrong. He is out of place, this man.

I look from him down the street. He is communing with somebody. He is
shouting one word over and over again. It can only be a name. I am too
late. Whoever it was is gone or is moving through the crowd hoping to
draw the least attention to themselves. Who can blame them? There is a
madman shouting in the street. You can sense their tension - the
tension of the person trying to escape - the hope that nobody knows
their name, the fluttering death rattle eye glances between fleeing
person and random strangers (that shared relief - there is a mad person
shouting, thank goodness they have nothing to do with us) - until there
is distance and the voice grows dim and disappears.

And still the man shouts. He must know. She - if it is a she - is not
coming back. And still he shouts. The cry changes, becoming something
else. He no longer desires the return of the fleeing person. Now he
merely wishes to advertise his pain. The sound he makes. He is a
wounded wolf howling in the crowd clearing. This man - this respectable
man - who may be observed by work colleagues and the like - this man
who does not care whether his keenness is witnessed - is glad, rather,
that his pain is on show - continues to howl into the early evening,
despite the fact that nobody appears to care. Nobody does more than
lift their head, cast a sly look from beneath clouded eyelids, nudge a
friend. It will be stored, maybe talked about later. Or worse: the
people who look and nudge and store will mean to tell others later -
the anecdote of the businessman screaming in the street in the early
evening - but they will forget and - the man screaming somebody's name
will not mean anything, will - rather - be forgotten before they reach
the end of the street, before they cross over the road, before they
order a pint or make their ride or whatever.

You ask me what I'm doing. You say what are you doing and then: what is
that?

I say: there is a man screaming in the street.

You don't answer. I continue watching. I don't turn to face you yet. I
don't do anything. I just watch. I leave the news of your abortion on
the table with the coffee, going cold.