0023: Trapped
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0023: Everly examines the residual ink burrowed into the nooks and crannies of each finger pad.
Hours ago, the guards assured her she would be released in a few hours, but they released each of her other cell mates one by one.
She, on the other hand, had been moved into jail cells further and further into the building. Like the cement walls were digesting her. This was her third cell and the biggest yet.
There were rows and rows of bunk beds, all with green army blankets suctioned over the top of the thin mattress.
The army blankets remind Everly of the one her parents always kept in the back of their Explorer, ready to give a big, itchy hug if anyone needed it.
Her only fond memory of the army blanket was on the 4th of July. She, her younger sister, her mom and dad would spread out the blanket by the lake and watch fireworks. Everly especially loved the ones that looked like weeping willows. She adored how they lazily dripped glitter across the smokey corpses of past explosions.
Her sister loved the crackers that sizzled up into the sky and burst loud and bright and then disappeared.
Her sister.
“What happened to your sister is NOT your fault.” Again, those words everyone chanted at her.
But she knew what really happened.
Tears flow out of Everly’s eyes and drip down her splotchy cheeks into her parched mouth.
It was impressive, as dehydrated as Everly felt, that she could cry so much. Her lips felt like two fat caterpillars covered by stretched rubber.
Licking them only made the surface split, but she couldn’t stop.
She wishes for chapstick. Instead, Everly grips the one thing they allow her to have.
Hours ago, the guards assured her she would be released in a few hours, but they released each of her other cell mates one by one.
She, on the other hand, had been moved into jail cells further and further into the building. Like the cement walls were digesting her. This was her third cell and the biggest yet.
There were rows and rows of bunk beds, all with green army blankets suctioned over the top of the thin mattress.
The army blankets remind Everly of the one her parents always kept in the back of their Explorer, ready to give a big, itchy hug if anyone needed it.
Her only fond memory of the army blanket was on the 4th of July. She, her younger sister, her mom and dad would spread out the blanket by the lake and watch fireworks. Everly especially loved the ones that looked like weeping willows. She adored how they lazily dripped glitter across the smokey corpses of past explosions.
Her sister loved the crackers that sizzled up into the sky and burst loud and bright and then disappeared.
Her sister.
“What happened to your sister is NOT your fault.” Again, those words everyone chanted at her.
But she knew what really happened.
Tears flow out of Everly’s eyes and drip down her splotchy cheeks into her parched mouth.
It was impressive, as dehydrated as Everly felt, that she could cry so much. Her lips felt like two fat caterpillars covered by stretched rubber.
Licking them only made the surface split, but she couldn’t stop.
She wishes for chapstick. Instead, Everly grips the one thing they allow her to have.