18/11/2023
From the archives:
Jane walked through the first glass door of the Females’ House of Nutrition Number Seventeen at precisely twenty hundred hours. As she stood still inside the booth, between the first door and the second (still locked), the metal cold beneath her callused feet, she tried not to sweat, to vomit, to faint, to flee in a panic and return to the residence. To the known, the familiar.
Six minutes. Six long minutes to walk the distance from Husband’s residence to the House of Nutrition. (It had been very hot today. The concrete had still been warm. Bugs has buzzed around her shaved head.) The same distance, the same route, at the same steady pace, at the same time every week for the last three months.
But it had been so much more difficult tonight.
She waited. Waited while the Custodian examined her from the other side of the second door (still locked). She tried to meet the Custodian’s gaze calmly, to not twitch or drop her hands over her belly. To behave exactly as she had once a week, every week, for the last three months.
But it was so much more difficult this time.
Through the windows (and the walls were mostly windows, all the way around, for a female must always be in view of any male who wished to observe her) she could see groups of other females: Wives, Daughters, Free Widows.
Read the rest of Rebecca Buchanan's dystopian tale of magic and resistance, "The Magdalene Railroad" only in ev0ke. [Content warning: references to abortion, gender oppression, physical and sexual abuse, religious abuse, and r**e.]
The Magdalene Railroad — Part One Image courtesy of Valentin Salja [Content Warning: references to abortion, gender oppression, physical and sexual abuse, religious abuse, and r**e.] Jane walked through the first glass door of the Females’ House of Nutrition Number Seventeen at precisely twenty ...
