We Dance Upon Demons

Chapter 1 Forty Days

Depression feels a lot like drowning.

I know everyone says that: Depression is a tar pit, depression is a weight, depression is like drowning.

I should clarify that depression feels a lot like drowning—in calm, shallow water when you’re a strong swimmer.

My body knows what to do. It strains and strains to reach the surface.

But my brain refuses to send the right signals.

My brain won’t do anything at all. It’s a fucking traitor.

But then, because it’s shallow water, my feet hit the ground and muscle memory kicks in. I push off the ocean floor. I surface, coughing up water. I think, Thank gods that’s over. I take a stroke toward solid ground, an impossible distance away. I am pulled under again.

Perhaps that’s a dramatic excuse for why I’m chronically late for work.

On the rare days I actually roll in at nine a.m., people pretend to be shocked.

I’m sure there are plenty of Indian Standard Time jokes made at my expense.

It’s fine with me. I’d rather that than have them know the truth: after a night of hardly sleeping, once I’ve bypassed the nightmares to wake up with the sun, I lie in bed, paralyzed by the thought of sitting up.

Of getting dressed. Of brushing my teeth.

But once my bladder gets too full, my feet hit the ground, and the momentum carries me forward.

I eat a piece of toast. I walk to the Red Line station.

Thankfully, my place of work comes with my own personal depression filter—protesters.

Something about getting screamed at and called a baby-murderer fills me with just enough annoyance to power through the rest of the day.

Today I exit the train around nine thirty a.m. Even though I’m late, I pop into one of the Indian grocery stores to grab a chai from an uncle I know.

“Running late, dear?” he asks, and I give a little shrug.

I know him well enough to understand that it’s concern, not judgment.

I’m already tardy, so why not grab an extra energy boost?

It’s a Wednesday, which is usually quiet at the clinic, since we don’t have surgical abortions scheduled, and I’m hopeful I won’t be the only one getting in late.

But as I get closer, I hear a swell of people who are trying and failing to be quiet.

It can’t be. I scramble to look at the date on my phone, and sure enough, it’s Ash Wednesday.

Or, for those who find perverse joy in harassing women and want to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of the country, the start of Forty Days for “Life.” In the forty-six days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, extra protesters haunt the clinic Monday through Saturday—Forty Days of Hell.

Every year, Forty Days sounds the death knell for clinics like ours.

It’s Forty Days of scaring patients, threatening newer providers, and turning community members against each other.

In my culture, after a baby is born, the mother and child stay at home for forty days, sheltered from the outside world.

So I always envision this period similarly, as our clinic’s time to hunker down until it’s safe again.

A yearly rebirth. I’m sure the protesters would hate this idea, given the significance of Lent.

I pick up the pace after I spot a regular, Steve, standing on the corner and holding a gory dead baby sign.

“Stop Calling Child Sacrifice ‘Choice,’ ” the sign reads, above a picture of a chopped-up, toddler-sized “fetus” smeared with blood.

It’s not like scientific accuracy matters to these people, but still, you have to wonder how many hours he spent on Photoshop to make this monstrosity.

“Go not into the house of death!” Steve shouts into his megaphone. “The worshippers of Satan have powers you know not! Death follows!” I lift my chin and give him a little wave. “Oh, it’s you.”

His comic disappointment is only heightened by the way his words bounce from his megaphone.

I resist the urge to laugh. Steve loves his house-of-death spiel.

He teaches high school physics, but he is tenured and so senior that he’s been able to engineer his schedule to keep his mornings free to harass women all around the city—sometimes his own students!

He’s also a card-carrying member of the Midwest Family Institute, and through it, he’s helped get his own queer colleagues fired.

At least Steve is a known quantity. As I pass him, I see what looks like a veritable horde of protesters amassed on the sidewalk in front of the clinic.

They’re not blocking the turn into our parking lot, but they are dangerously close.

Some are kneeling and praying the rosary.

Others are holding their own signs: “God Loves You, Mommy!” “We Will Help You!” As I turn into the drive, they start shouting at me.

“Choose adoption!”

“Your baby should have a choice, too!”

“Don’t be a killer!”

“These clinics kill Black babies!”

Ugh, that one’s particularly disgusting. I scan the crowd, which is pretty much all white, but fail to identify the commenter.

“At least take a leaflet,” someone else says while shoving a piece of glossy paper with a smiling baby into my hands. “You have other options.”

I turn my eyes to the ground and keep walking.

Someone rushes in front of me. FACE Act violation!

Not that it matters. I wouldn’t rely on the police for help even if there was an active shooter, and the current administration’s Department of Justice would probably prosecute us if we tried to report a breach of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

I try to sidestep the protester, and they grab my wrist. I firmly shake them off, but I’ve been encircled.

How many patients have had to run this gauntlet today?

There’s nothing I can do, since I’m not interested in losing any teeth.

I pull out my phone and start recording, capturing the faces of everyone around me just in case.

“We’re just trying to help you!” a woman says in a voice I’m sure she thinks is compassionate. “If you go in there, they’ll try to trick you. They’ll lie and say we’re the bad guys. But really, we’re pro-women. Half of all fetuses are girls!”

There is one thing the antis and I agree on—there are good guys and bad guys—though obviously we disagree on which is which. Seeing what I do every day, it’s impossible not to sort the world this way. It’s the division that keeps me sane.

There are no clinic escorts outside, but usually Diane keeps an eye on the situation to help if things get serious.

I’m not sure identifying myself as an employee is the best way to get myself safely inside, so I just try to edge my way toward the entrance.

The crowd moves with me, never mind that they’re trespassing on private property.

“Please, mommy, don’t go in,” a serious voice says. I gag internally. “Your baby wants to live!”

I think about what Aai would say to me, what she has said to me whenever I’ve told her that I want to give up.

If Durga could defeat Mahishasura and Kali could consume Raktabija and Satyabhama could defeat Narakasura, you can survive this ten seconds longer.

Our women are strong. Ten seconds more. Ten seconds more. And then, I didn’t raise a quitter.

The door to the clinic swings open and Diane marches out with her bullhorn. “Get off the property, now!” The crowd almost immediately disperses, and I hold up my phone to try to get a picture of the whole group. It could be helpful to track repeat offenders. Diane turns to me. “You okay?”

“Has it been this way all morning?” I ask, not wanting to answer her question with the truth, that I almost had a panic attack.

She nods. “I prepared myself, but I didn’t think it would be this intense.”

“They must be coming from Indiana or somewhere else where there aren’t any clinics left to protest.”

If I’m right and we’re going to be hosting this volume of antis for the next Forty Days of Hell, I’m going to need to draw up a daily escort schedule—and fast. We’ll need to onboard new volunteers.

I’ll pick up more shifts. There’s so much to do, but at least now I’m motivated to get it done.

I pull out my employee badge and scan into the building, hearing a collective groan behind me.

It’s almost enough to make me smile. Instead, a wave of despair overtakes me.

There’s a seed of doubt blooming in my brain as I think about the wall of faces wishing me bodily harm.

My heart beats faster, and I realize that at last I’m feeling an emotion. Fear.