Fiction
HOUSE ARREST The date was July 25, 2012. A Wednesday. The kind that begins with routine and ends with a scream. She remembered none of the in-between, only the blur of a street, a vehicle, and a sudden plunge into a dream-state that was anything but restful. One moment she was upright, and the next—dragged, crushed, bleeding, her foot offering its bones to the open air. The jelly shoes, chosen for comfort, betrayed her. Their dainty holes welcomed the tire spikes like unwelcome guests. The big toenail was gone. Shattered, the doctor said with humor. Scattered like confetti—an uninvited celebration on asphalt. There were two surgeries. Pins. Screws. Words she once associated with hardware stores now permanently fastened to her bones. The skin wounds—raw, deep abrasions that made her flinch at the breeze—were the worst. They stripped her of movement, modesty, even sleep. Outside, her students threw an acquaintance party. "Titanic" was their theme prop, a nod to some...