The Space Between Before and After

January 12th 2024

The air inside the car thickened with dread, a vise of panic crushing my lungs until each breath tasted metallic, like licking a battery. Outside, the world smeared into a watercolor of grays—streetlights bleeding into asphalt, trees dissolving into skeletal silhouettes. The Sheriff’s voice echoed through my mind-Charges, Warrant, Body Attachment. No warning. No preamble. My throat tightened around questions I couldn’t voice. What charges? Why? The deputy offered nothing. Just static. My heart hammered against my ribs, a caged thing trying to claw its way out. This is a nightmare, I thought. Wake up. Wake up.  

But the nightmare breathed.  

I drove home in a fugue state, hands welded to the steering wheel as if I might levitate, each breath became more suffocating than the last. 

The Lawyer’s Call

I stared at the phone screen intensely waiting for it to ring. 37 minutes passed since the conclusion of our last call. He’d instructed me to await his call while he obtained clarification on the exact charges I was facing. 

He finally rang as I paced the living room, daylight slicing through my blinds like prison bars.

“Assault with a deadly weapon, resisting law enforcement, and reckless driving.”He said. “They’ve elevated the first two to felonies-stacked them. Claim your car was the weapon.” Words that belonged to strangers, to monsters. Not me.

My knees buckled, I gripped the windowsill, fingernails biting into the paint. The floor beneath me tilted. My Car. The same one I’d driven to countless patient homes, the one I’ve mourned the loss of loved ones in, the one with a zombie family sticker on the back window….a deadly weapon. 

His voice dripped with rehearsed calm. “I can defend you and protect your nursing license.” He said. I wanted to believe him. So I did. “With a discount for being a nurse, it will be $15k, the going rate for cases like yours is $25-30k.” The charges hung in the air like smoke choking me. A scream crawled up my throat-but no sound came. Only the static hiss of my unraveling. 

They say your life can unravel in a single breath. Mine dissolved in the space between before and after. 

A Day Carved in Ice and Ink