The Visitor: A Probation Officer's Home Inspection
She stood beside my bed in a dark jacket despite the heat. I sat on the sofa holding a cup of coffee, intent on looking comfortable.
She stood beside my bed in a dark jacket despite the heat. I sat on the sofa holding a cup of coffee, intent on looking comfortable.
Robert spent the weekend lying on a cot, gasping for breath. He was provided no oxygen or respirator. Come Monday when finally seen by a doctor, Rob was rushed to a hospital.
I've often marveled at the creative talent locked away in the nation's prisons, unwitnessed and wasted. The twins handmade the Monopoly game from cardboard, construction paper, and clear tape.
What if freedom isn't everything I hope it will be? I'd been building it up in my mind for so long imagining it to be the answer to all my problems. But what if it isn't?
It's impossible for inmates to keep six feet apart when we're forced to eat, sleep, and shit within four feet of each other. The prison system itself has put us at highest risk.
As the virus winds its way across the globe, people everywhere find their worlds shrinking. Prisoners' worlds, which had already seemed impossibly small, are shrinking too.
We were dominoes, all poised to fall. Locked down and left to ourselves, watching infections ripple through the prison system from Leavenworth to Carswell.