My turn.  Medical questions, blood pressure testing, twice.  The first test had me exploded to dead, but the second read perfectly.  After more sitting, watching the ones who had been there longer than me get jumpsuits, showers, and sent to a cell with their bedding in arms, I actually envied them.  I was called for fingerprints, all digital.  It was amazing.  Roll your palm here, touch there.  The world gets more efficient the closer it gets to extinction.

Sitting here now, in this cell, looking back on this, I remember the low whispers of the people next to me talking about their cases, the low and barely audible communication.  Frightened whispers flying below the radar of the deputies, communicating like dogs who can only hear the whistle’s frequency, but bad dogs all the same.  The tiles and walls and layout of the lobby crawled upon me there, the sick fatigue of not knowing where I would be, in a cell with a big son of a bitch who thought I was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, the burn of my defense bleeding across my knuckles, the weight of his body on mine while he fucks me.  He presses his palms into my shoulders, which flatten against the concrete floor and he arches his hips into me, shoots his cum inside of me and all I can do is feel my loosened teeth protesting against my drool on the floor.  It won’t come to that, though.  I am tired and crazed but I am strong and angry.  I start to think about it when I’m called over for a shower.  3 am.  I had to strip and lift my balls and bend over, spread my ass and cough.  I didn’t want to think about that guy’s job, but I would work it double time if I could come home to you, to the ghost around my typewriter, to your long dream hair and turquoise eyes sending me into that place, that place where I no longer live.