Intake
The window slides open with a groan. Her eyes flick to the clock before she pulls the paper from my hand. “Nine seventeen,” she says. “You just made it.”
Her lanyard displays a photo of a thin face that smiles.
A guard leans against the wall over my right shoulder, arms crossed, radio chirping at his hip. His eyelids shine with sleep that didn’t finish.
“Empty your pockets,” he says without looking.
A tray waits for the offerings: coins, a lighter with a fading casino logo, two paper clips I didn’t know about, the AA chip that turns dull under the fluorescent lights.
The guard takes a step toward the tray, then thinks better of touching the chip and lets his hands return to his elbows.
On the intake scale, the numbers wake, settle, forget. The nurse writes what they tell her. She slides a plastic wristband through a plastic window. “Make it click shut,” she says. “Shoes off."
The guard’s radio squawks. He lowers the volume and watches my socks touch the tile.
“Ready?” the nurse says. The lock buzzes. The door swings open. Her badge clacks against her chest.
“We’ll inventory your bag, then you’ll shower, then change.” She’s got a pen tucked behind her ear and a streak of ink on her thumb.
The guard watches my hands go where they’re told.
The duffel yawns. Socks. Shirts. Paperback with sand and sun on the cover. Another chip goes in the tray. The nurse nods at the bathroom. “Piss test,” she says, workmanlike as a nail. “We do it right away.”
In the men’s room, the mirror has a crack that climbs the glass like a vine. The bulb hums and throws a dirty halo on the tile. The stall door hangs crooked; the hook is gone. A wet ring around the drain makes a tidal map.
Behind the toilet, the baseboard curls away from the wall just enough to leave a shadow.
There’s a balloon the size of a grape tucked under the tongue, softened all day against the molars, a taste of rubber and talc, an old penny.
The bathroom light flickers again and steadies. Water runs. The cup warms in the hand. The mirror holds the room, steady as a held breath.
A balloon can ride a throat and not break if the jaw is gentle and the swallow is clean.
There’s a way to make it through metal detectors and pat-downs and locked doors with one last mercy tucked away. There’s also a trash can with a liner that whispers when a palm opens above it.
In the cracked glass, a throat works. Once. Twice. The Adam’s apple rises and falls. The balloon is there or it isn’t. The mirror won’t say.
The cup goes on the counter, lid screwed tight. The nurse marks it. The Sharpie squeaks like a mouse—her strokes, sure and black. She clicks the window shut and turns her back to write.
“Follow me,” a second nurse appears, holding the door with her hip. Her key ring is a small wind chime. Her hallway smells of laundry heat and boiled vegetables.
A man down the corridor coughs and counts his coughs out loud. Somewhere a TV plays a nature show—hoofbeats, a chase, then small, wet sounds.
In the locker room, a metal door sighs on its hinge. A thin towel waits, folded square. Knees bend. Hands work at a shoelace. The zipper kisses the tile.
The shower knobs turn stiff, then give. The first water is cold, then hot enough to raise the skin in pink welts along the shoulders. Steam climbs.
The chip is not in my pocket. The lighter is not in my hand. The balloon is not in the drain.
The valve squeaks, the water shuts, but the room keeps humming, pipes settling in their sleeves. A towel finds a shoulder and leaves a damp print where it sat.
The door rattles once, politely.
The mirror over a row of sinks has no crack. It is a clean, uninterrupted sheet of glass that throws back a man with water standing on his eyelids and a mouth gone quiet.
A nurse’s voice drifts through the door: “Five minutes.”
The wall clock answers with a click at each minute like a small animal in the ceiling.
A paper sign is taped above the sink: CONTRABAND = DISCHARGE. The tape curls at the edges where hands have picked at it.
Sneakers squeak in the hall.
In the noise of the spray, somewhere between hot and too hot, a decision has been made or avoided. The difference will show later in a nurse’s face, in a night’s sleep that sticks or slides off, in a phone that rings and gets answered or doesn’t.
Voices rise and fall down the corridor.
A key turns and withdraws.
The door opens with a hand not shaking or shaking.
The air tastes like lemon, stings like bleach, and the week ends where it always ends, at the edge of a threshold, feet bare on cold tile, somebody saying “This way,” and the mirror behind, doing what mirrors do—staying, while the body steps out of the frame.
Flower Girl
[a 50-word story]
Wilted. Wrapped in cellophane and rubber bands. Dollar each.
She works the left turn lane. Hits every window before the light changes.
I bought one Tuesday. Dead by the time I got home.
She remembers my truck now. Holds one up. Hopeful.
I hand her the dollar.
She smiles.
Radiant.
Your turn
Buy me a flower? 🌺
It’s just you, me, and these people I can’t get out of my head. I write for them, to dignify their experience, to share their humanity.
If you’ve got a dollar or five that won’t leave a hole—throw it in. The buttons are below.
If you’re tapped, you’re tapped. I get it.
But if you’ve got it, I need it. It’s how I keep the lights on - for them.
$1 per month
…or, if you’re feeling generous$3?
…okay$4 per month
…if you insist
Thanks so much for sharing, @quiet reminders ❤️
This is so real...its a short story yet it feels like drama in real life! It breaths lived experience. Whether its your own or someone else's!! Absolutely enjoyable read! Very descriptive it takes the reader to the place where they are living the experience!