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It was a bleak Autumn morning, and as Julie was awakened by her hellish alarm clock, she knew that the day had come. There was no escaping the fact that a decision had to be made. She draped a bathrobe over her body and headed downstairs for what she had always defended as “enough for me.” As she scanned the front yard through the kitchen window, thoughts raced sporadically through her mind. None more imminent than The Decision. She made up her mind in a rather matter-of-fact fashion, but that was the way she was. Nothing had ever mattered very much before, so why should this be any different? she often reassured herself. She knew in the midst of all of her selfish thoughts what the right thing to do was, but she had never cared enough about anything or anyone to do something that didn’t benefit her.
Charlie wasn’t much help, either. He was as responsible for what had been done as she was, but seemingly left it all on her to deal with. She resented him for that, but knew that if possible, she would’ve done the same to him. They were never the same as they had been last year. Oh, for it to be last year! The notes between classes, the hand-holding, the pet names. That was all nothing compared to how romantic he used to be. He was her king and she was his queen. They completed each other. She would refer to them as Ben & Jerry, Bonny & Clyde, Clark & Lois, or any other nauseatingly adorable comparison to a couple that couldn’t have survived isolated from one another.
As she listened for his hello, she hoped Charlie wouldn’t be in one of his moods. “Hello,” was the uniform response on the other end. “Hi, how are you?” Julie responded.
“Not bad. Did you really have to call this early on Saturday?” he grumbled.
“Sorry, I thought you might be up, Honey,” she said, trying to lighten the tension that one could feel through the phone line.
“Yeah, so what do you want?” he snapped.
“What do you think I want? You think I wanna talk about the weather?”
“No, but I already told you that I don’t care either way,” he said harshly.
“It’s not like you didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“So what if I did? It’s not like it’s my choice.”
“If you want it, you need to say something.”
“Well, did I? Obviously not. So, what does that tell you?”
“Whatever happened to us? I used to be able to come to you about anything. Now, it’s like you’re a totally different person. It’s like you don’t even care about me anymore,” she whimpered.
“You know I care. I just don’t need to deal with this right now.”
“Well, it’s a bit late for that, isn’t it? It’s not like we can take back what we did,” she scolded.
“Don’t put this on me! You had just as much responsibility as I did, if not more,” he quipped.
“More?! How could I have possibly had any more?”
“Just forget it. I’ll go with you if that’s what you want.”
“I do,” she said.
“Then get ready. I’ll be over in a while.”
She began to dress, and as she did, she saw--littered on the floor--the dress she had worn that fatal night. She began to cry, but stopped herself so he wouldn’t ask any questions about why her eyes were “like they always are.”
He arrived and waited for her in his jalopy. He never went up to the door anymore, what with how her dad felt about him and all. Not that he’d go up anyway, he just used her dad as an excuse.
She came out, got in the car, he drove off. No more kisses hello, no more You look great today’s, no more of anything at all like that. That was then. This was now. Everything had changed that night. One mistake had made every difference anyone could have imagined. Ozzie and Harriet were no more.
He pulled into a parking stall, and with that, he broke the silence. “How long is this gonna take?” he asked.
“Why, do you have another date or something?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Does it matter? You said you’d be here for me,” she pleaded.
“Fine. I’ll just go in with you,” he groaned.
“Good. Besides, I have no idea how long it will take.”
They made their way through a few Pro-Life supporters into the clinic. They waited in the lobby for the blood-stained butcher to come out, and he finally showed her into her room. After a great deal of physical pain--what she thought would be the worst part of it--she came out into Charlie’s arms, weeping.
Having just realized what she’d done, she screamed out, “Why did I do it?”! Her words were blended between her outbursts of grief, but he heard her piercing voice as clear as nails on a chalkboard. “How could you let me do it?!”
“Wait, wait, wait,” he said. “Calm down, baby, just calm down and talk to me,” he said as assuringly as possible. He glanced up at the lady behind the oak desk, hoping for some sort of help with this 115-pound heap of emotion that had attached itself to his jacket and buried its face in his chest. The glance he got back was as warm as the cup of ice water in his hand. The lady behind the desk had seen his look of total depravity and absolute hopelessness on faces far too many times to have associated names to them.
Still confused as to why Julie was so emotional, he said, “You need to tell me what’s wrong, so I’ll know how to help you.”
Completely oblivious to his empty words, she wailed, “Why the hell did we even have to do it? Was it really worth it to you?”
Charlie helped her out to his car so he could concentrate on what he’d do without having to deal with other people watching the spectacle that was once his girlfriend. He dropped her off at home so they could each deal with it the way they always dealt with things--alone.
He didn’t sleep much that night, but it was nowhere near as gut-wrenching of a night as Julie had to endure. As she finally fell asleep after hours of weeping into her pillow, she heard a voice in her dream.
“Mommy?” the voice said.
“Who’s there? Who is it?” she replied.
“It’s me, Mommy,” the voice said. “What happened today? Why am I not with you anymore?”
“Um, I don’t know. Who are you? I’m not a Mommy. You must be mistaken,” she said even more confused each time the voice spoke.
“You left me behind today. Why?” the voice questioned.
Realizing who she was talking to, she said, “Oh no! It’s you, it’s really you! Why are you here?”
“Mommy, why?” the voice said.
“Why what?” she said, feeling ensnared.
“You made a Pro-Choice. You made a decision for me. You never gave me a chance. I would’ve made you proud, Mommy. I would’ve, I promise.”
“I wasn’t ready to be a mommy, yet. You weren’t planned, you just happened,” she reasoned.
“So, that just makes me a casualty of circumstance. No one will ever see me laugh, no one will ever see me smile.”
“Don’t blame me. I have a hard enough life right now.”
“What if your parents had done this to you?”
“Well.......”
“Why did you make a purchase that I had to pay?”
“Well.......”
As her dream continued and the voice continued to ask questions she couldn’t answer, Charlie wasn’t exactly getting a great night’s sleep, either. He was having a dream, but there were no voices. There were no sounds. Only images. He was riding in the front seat of his own car, but there was no one driving. The car was moving just as he would drive, swerving in and out of traffic, speeding, and basically not caring who or what else was one the road. The car turned off on a street he’d never been on before. An image appeared in the driver’s seat. It was him. He saw a partially transparent image that looked like what he’d always thought a ghost would look like. The ghost just looked at him and stared. He felt as if it could see into his heart and knew what he’d done that day and wasn’t happy about it. Charlie looked back to the road, feeling uneasy about what the ghost might do. As he turned his head to the dark road stretching out for miles before him, he saw a stroller in the middle of the road. The ghost sped up, with his sights seemingly set on the stroller.
“Watch out!!” he said.
“Shut up, Charlie, ” the ghost replied.
“You’re gonna kill that baby, man,” Charlie pleaded.
“So what. You ain’t into killin’ babies, or what? I sure am,” the ghost snarled.
Geez, this guy is crazy, Charlie thought.
“Am I?”
“What’d you say?”
“Am I so crazy?” the voice repeated.
“Of course!! Anyone who kills a baby ought to be locked up, man,” Charlie screamed. Realizing what he just said, his face turned white as a new undershirt. He couldn’t believe how stupid he had been earlier that day. I killed a baby. How could I have done something like that?
As he looked over to where the ghost had been, it was gone. Suddenly, he was in the driver’s seat, and the stroller was nearly twenty feet away. He stepped on the brake pedal with every ounce of decency he had, but to no avail.
As Julie was awakened by her favorite alarm clock, there was a horrible cloud of grief about her. She trudged downstairs to not have breakfast. As she glanced at the paper, she saw that the date said ”Saturday.” What the ......? Yesterday was Saturday. This is impossible. I have to call Charlie.
“Julie?” was the eager response on the other end of the line.
“Yes, how did you know?” she said as confused as ever.
“I don’t know. I was just hoping it was you,” he responded.
“We need to talk,” they said simultaneously.
“I’ll be right over,” he said.
She met him at the door as he raced into the house. “Wasn’t yesterday Saturday?” he asked.
“I thought it was, but the paper said today is and so did my parents,” she assured him. “I was confused too.”
As they both recounted their horrible dreams, they looked into each other’s eyes with a calm and intensity that had long disappeared. They realized they’d been given another chance. “Was yesterday just a dream, too?” she asked.
“It must’ve been. But, that’s weird how we had the same first half of the dream, but had different dreams within our dreams,” he observed with the wit she so admired.
“We have to do something with this baby. Neither of us can condone abortion, but we still can’t have this child. It has to go someplace where it will be loved.”
“You’re right. But can we really live knowing that a part of us is out there somewhere?” he said.
“Well......”
I had to write a story given the title The Red Shadow for a class I'm in. Listening to P.O.D. songs & Dogwood songs inspired me on what to write about. This story will soon be published in a Christian punk 'zine, beaten and yet not killed. You can subscribe to this newsletter by emailing here This is not my email address, but the one of the 'zines author.
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