Failing the Future

"I can't keep doing this," I said, wiping the blood off my face with a handkerchief. "It's getting harder every time."

"I know, I know." She sighed. "I'm sorry it's like this. You're a good friend, you know that?"

"I do. I really do. I'll keep doing it until you're better."

"Always the optimist, aren't you?" she said. "If only the world was as fair and just as you are."

"Maybe not that bad," I said with a chuckle. "But yeah, I guess so… Anyway, how about we just continue? It's been 3 years already since your first miscarriage and still no luck. We've tried everything we could afford to try but nothing worked."

She nodded and took a deep breath. "Yeah, let's go on then." The doctor rolled her eyes in exasperation while preparing the next injection. She had been with us ever since the experience with the total hysterectomy. She knew how much we wanted children and how much pain it brought every time we failed again and again. But she also knew what it meant for our family if I gave up on her now and married someone else so she was willing to give it another shot.

The doctors had told us that she would never be able to have children after the first surgery – but we didn't believe them then and we didn't believe them now either. We were young and stupid and in love – nothing could stand in our way back then. So we went ahead with trying to get pregnant until it became too painful for her to carry on any longer and now here we were three years later at the same hospital, trying once again to make a baby. My wife continued staring at the ceiling while I sat beside her bed watching the needle slowly descend towards her abdomen – through the small window in front of me I could see the doctors injecting a dark solution into her womb. It was supposed to induce an abortion if that was possible or at least help us decide whether or not she was even able to carry on trying or not – like last time around there were two options: keep trying or end it right away before it started hurting her too much.

We were living in a small village located near a major city where she was working as an assistant professor at one of the local universities while I was working in a private law firm in the same city where she worked – I had moved there all by myself when we got married because she wanted to stay behind in her hometown for some time instead of moving straight away so that she could tell her parents about our relationship. Her parents were extremely conservative people who had different views about relationships and marriage than most other people did these days - they saw getting married as something sacred and permanent that shouldn't be entered lightly - they wanted us to wait until marriage before getting physically involved with each other (which wasn't very hard considering that she lived hours away from me) which is why they weren't too happy when she called them up one day telling them that she had gotten married without their knowledge after only dating for four months or so - fortunately they eventually came around after talking things out with my parents but not without imposing their own rules on us beforehand (which is why I moved out of my parent's house alone). As well as living apart from each other, my wife also insisted on hiding our relationship from her colleagues in case they found out - turns out that she had very good reasons for doing so after all because when we first started dating she had told me that almost everyone there knew each other personally so it wouldn't be hard for anyone to find out about us if word ever got around about our relationship… anyway, point is: it wasn't easy being together but we managed somehow.

After finishing up at work one evening my phone suddenly rang - it was my wife telling me that she needed me to pick her up from outside the hospital because something had transpired at work today - apparently one of her male colleagues had discovered a picture of us together in his office. He immediately called over his female colleagues who quickly surrounded him, accusing my wife of seducing him into immoral activities such as sleeping with him or worse - marrying him! My heart stopped when I heard this news - what would they do next?!

After regaining composure, I swiftly headed towards where my wife was waiting for me… but by then things had escalated. There were so many people gathered outside her office, blocking anyone from approaching her or making contact with any of them… they wouldn't let me through either! They saw me standing nearby, anxiously waiting for them to disperse so that I could go back inside and talk things over with my wife, but they all remained silent – none of them would respond no matter how loudly I shouted at them – some even pretended not to hear anything at all!

I couldn't believe this was happening… What was