Chapter 6 Lying Eyes
There is a man, handsome and proud, walking through the foothills of the Himalayas. He is leaving, the mountains at his back. Although there is snow everywhere, and the man is dressed in a light kurta, he does not seem cold. He looks up at me, and when he smiles, his teeth are pointed—
I snap awake at the thrill of adrenaline and sit bolt upright.
I clench my eyes shut and try to remember the fading remnants of the dream.
It was long, though I can only remember snippets.
The man conjured by my subconscious had the face of the man I met at the museum, but at the start of the dream he had been covered in blood and shaking as though just birthed.
Yet he was fully formed, and when he pushed himself onto his feet, brushing tears off his face and shuddering, he did not seem like a child.
He walked with uncertainty, looking back at the mountains with longing.
But in time, he held his head higher. He saw smoke rising in the distance and was possessed by grim determination.
There was a hard look in his eyes, and I knew it could be nothing good.
Even so, he didn’t do anything wrong; I was judging him based on the sensation of the dream, some prickling sense in the back of my head.
My brain clearly combined a few of my recent encounters into a rakshasa-inspired dream.
But it lodges in my gut, churning, feeling truer than the reality I don’t want to face, especially not after that party.
When I started at this job, I told myself it would be a stepping stone to greater things.
I was just out of college, believing that individuals like me could change the world for the better.
That was before I learned that not even a Democratic president could protect women’s bodies, that not even millions of people marching in the streets could save Black lives, that not even one hundred countries coming together could stop a genocide.
That no person could make a positive change, but it only took one person to ruin a life, a country, a world.
My first boss—who has since been replaced by a part-time remote outreach supervisor who “manages” me by sending fundraising emails on Wednesdays and Thursdays—was a woman named Patty, whose exhausted eye bags only grew more pronounced with each passing week.
I was filled with energy and brainstormed ideas to build out a full volunteer program, emailed hundreds of potential partners, found court cases we could join, and generally made myself a nuisance.
Eventually, Patty called me into her office for a check-in.
She said, “I’m concerned about you, Nisha. You’re overextending yourself.”
“Is there something I’ve been forgetting to do?” I asked. “I’m so sorry. I’ll correct it straightaway.”
Patty sighed. “I don’t want you to burn out. Have you managed to find more consistent volunteers? Have any funders responded?”
“It’s an awkward time right now,” I told her. “The pandemic and all. I’m sure soon—”
“I’ve had a long day,” Patty said. “A long year, a long decade. So let me be blunt. We’re not stupid or lazy here. The reason we don’t do everything you’re doing is because we learned long ago it didn’t work. You’re wasting your time.”
“But—”
“Focus on what we have.” She clicked something on her computer screen. “Roe’s going to fall soon anyways. We just have to try to survive.”
“I read an op-ed in The New York Times the other day that said the opposite?” I phrased it as a question, hoping to break through her pessimism, but she just scoffed. I felt confident she was wrong.
“Young people think they know everything, but if the world worked like you think it does, you’d be out of a job.”
There was nothing I could say to that. In just a few sentences, she had transformed me from a crusader into a naive idealist.
Then came the Dobbs decision, and I finally learned that no matter what conservatives swore under oath before Congress, they didn’t care about fairness.
They cared about power. Patty apologized on the day she left.
She cried tears of relief and wished me all the best. Now I’m something worse than Patty because I don’t even have the courage to get out of my own rut.
I try to take some deep breaths, because I need to pace myself.
It’s only day three of forty. Patients are relying on me, and I’m already late.
I lie there, wasting another five minutes thinking about how I should get up, before finally, by some miracle, my body forces itself to work.
My feet hit the ground. I get into motion.
I feel a bit dizzy on the way to the clinic, but the machinations of the body serve to further ground the mind.
“Feeling better?” Diane asks when I get in. She pushes my bright yellow vest toward me.
I nod. I’ve at least focused on the task ahead.
“There’s a big crowd already,” I say. “How is it that it’s worse every day?”
Diane shakes her head sadly. “You know, I thought when they won, they’d be less loud. But then I realized, as long as even one clinic is open, they haven’t won.”
“Good to know we still consume their every waking thought,” I snipe, and Diane gives me a short laugh in reward.
But just as quickly, her face turns serious. “Hey, have you heard anything about the clinic having to move? Something about the alderman?” Her voice is pitched low, and I almost get whiplash from the change in mood.
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
She purses her lips. “Maybe it’s nothing, but I’m concerned. I always keep my ear to the ground, you know, and all of a sudden I’m hearing news that someone wants to buy us, or maybe we’re going to be considered a public nuisance now, or…”
“It’s probably just Forty Days. Nobody likes to be around a clinic then,” I say. We’re both thinking the same thing, though: Any shift in the political or financial wind could sink us. Our clinic, like most independent operations, is always hanging on by a thread.
She sighs. “Stay safe out there, honey. I’ll call through the volunteer list you emailed me yesterday when I have a free moment. Hopefully we can get more boots on the ground.”
“I’m sure we can. I would start with Jeff.” Jeff is a big, burly retiree—an absolute sweetheart to patients and a stone wall to protesters. We met escorting at Planned Parenthood, when he took me aside and gently told me the protesters would treat me worse for being brown. As a Black man, he knew.
“They’re not going to shout slurs at you—well, not most of them, anyways.
They’re going to target you because they love to pretend they’re fighting for people like us,” he said, placing a large, mittened hand on my shoulder, breath coming out in steaming puffs.
I thought I could handle anything then but didn’t want to seem disrespectful, so I thanked him.
At the end of that first Planned Parenthood shift, Jeff found me crying in the volunteer coat closet. He shook his head. “I know, right?”
“I thought you were overreacting!” I couldn’t believe how they had gotten under my skin, making my blood boil with their comparisons of abortion to genocide.
“Oh honey, no,” he said. And finally, at the end of that horrible and terrible day, I was able to laugh.
Jeff lives in the south suburbs, so he’s not a regular here. But when we call him, he’s always willing to put in the miles. I could use his gruff, grounding energy right about now.
I take a moment to gather myself before stepping back outside.
It was nice enough out yesterday, but now it’s snowing.
At least it’s warm thirties snow. For Chicago in February, that’s pretty decent.
The protesters are shouting, and I think someone’s speaking in tongues—or maybe they’re just that incoherent.
A car comes down the narrow street, and the moment its signal turns for the clinic parking lot, protesters run in front of it.
I sigh and try to make eye contact with the person inside, beckoning them forward.
They seem to get it, honking twice, then moving at a snail’s pace.
As the car creates room, I slip into the gap and throw my hands out to shield the driver’s side.
Someone bangs on the back windshield, but then they’re in the parking lot. Safe.
I’m about to approach and ask if they want to be walked inside, when I make sudden, jolting eye contact with an anti.
Not someone. Something. For a moment, the roaring of the protesters fades into silence as I stare open-mouthed at the otherworldly creature—a stocky red-skinned demon with hooves instead of feet.
It smiles at me, revealing two great tusks.
Nobody else seems to notice or care. I take a step forward to get a better look and narrowly avoid a car pulling up in front of me.
I tear my gaze away to see Aaron staring at me in confusion through his windshield.
I’m standing in the middle of the road. I jump back, and when I look up, the demon is gone.
That side of the road is unoccupied, stretching wide open in either direction.
The demon—I’m making things up. I look over the rest of the protesters and feel a new sense of unease.
Another car pulls up. “Hey, Nish! Sorry I’m late, I got stuck in traffic!” JJ calls out the window. “Diane called, said I could pick up a shift even though I’m not trained yet because you’ll be on duty with me?”
The demon is gone. This is all in my head, and I’m letting myself worry about supernatural fantasies instead of keeping the clinic running. I’m embarrassed that I let myself daydream on the job. I turn my focus to JJ.
“Thank you so much for coming in on short notice. As you can see, they’re out in full force today. But go inside, grab a vest, and I think the patients will be in good hands.”