Behind the Glass
In the famous words of Carrie Fisher, "Take your broken heart, make it into art." And so I did just that a couple years ago while drafting another entry for the CBC Creative Nonfiction contest. I dug this one up from the archives. It needs some air. *** The metal door clinked loudly as the officer shut it behind me. “Follow me.” He led me across a sterile room to a plastic and metal chair positioned in front of a booth, grabbed the back of the chair and motioned silently for me to sit. I sat down and looked ahead through a sheet of thick plexiglass to the opposite side. My mother stared back at me. “Hi, mom.” “Hi, sweetie.” Small, dark specks of blood remained on her nose and chin. All the blood on the front side of her white sweater had crusted into a deep crimson from the chest down. “Mom, why are you in here and not him? It’s not fair.” “It was an outstanding warrant from a while ago. Nothing serious. They want to keep me overnight, that’s all.” ...