ADAMS COUNTY CLERK’S OFFICE
“Name?”
“Cleodora Fisk.”
“Date of birth?”
“March 15, 1963.”
“Just one minute.”
The silver-haired lady gathers a small stack of court documents to be signed.
“First and last names on all pages by the X.”
She slides the paperwork under the glass partition. Cleo picks up the pen sitting on top and puts her signature to work.
“Everything you need to know is in there. Ninety days to pay the $1000 fine, check or money order only.”
Cleo glances up between pages.
“This is your first offense so license suspension is ninety days but will only be reissued after completion of the treatment program.”
Cleo rolls her eyes and returns to the forms.
“The meetings are court-ordered as stated. Ninety day period. Frequency of attendance is up to you but there is a mandatory minimum of three times per week.”
She signs the last paper, slides them and the pen back under the glass.
“Do you have any questions?”
“No.”
The elder woman pushes Cleo’s copies towards her.
“Any phone numbers you may need are on the back form.”
“Thank you.”
“You have a wonderful day.”
“You too.” Cleo forces with a half-grin.
Wednesday - October 6
The hard plastic chair curved in all the wrong places. She shifted every few seconds, desperately searching for some middle-ground comfort.
Half a dozen others seated in a semi-circle, eyes darting, some landing on her. Torture for the timid, slow-burning like a low-grade fever. This was Cleo’s first Narcotics Anonymous meeting and it was already grinding her into a fine powder.
“New girl, feel like sharing?” asks the over-confident group leader.
She makes brief eye contact before returning her attention to the floor.
“My name’s Cleodora, everyone calls me Cleo.”
“Hi Cleo!” the peanut gallery chants in unison.
There’s no way out of this now. She takes a deep breath, then begins.
“I crashed into a telephone pole, fucked it up pretty good. Totaled my car. I was loaded. Heroin.”
The entire group hangs on her every word.
“Nodded off behind the wheel. I could’ve died. I should’ve died.” her voice quivers, eyes tearing up.
ONE WEEK EARLIER
Cleo comes to in a hospital bed, her right hand cuffed to the side rail. Her breathing accelerates, her memory is blank but the undertow in her gut tells her things are bad.
An older woman enters the room - the ER attending physician. Her expression - an unsuited mixture of scorn and sympathy. Cleo’s heart sinks.
“I’m so sorry. You’ve miscarried.”
“Miscarried?”
The woman pauses in view of Cleo’s surprize.
“You were about nine weeks in.”
Cleo collapses into herself.
She wipes her eyes and clears her throat. The older lady seated next to her places a hand on Cleo’s left knee. A comforting gesture lost on her.
Cleo quickly takes stock of her surroundings then immediately drops her gaze back to the candy corn and puke colored carpeting.
She returns home to find an unwanted guest seated leisurely on her couch.
“Jesus, what the fuck?” she gasps.
She shuts and locks the door, moves across the room and sits on a wood frame chair.
“I was beginning to think you forgot about me.”
“Well I haven’t.” she replies, a nervous twinge unbalancing her words.
The rough and dirty looking man stands and walks to where Cleo sits tapping her right foot, rubbing her left thumb and index finger together.
“It’s been a week.”
“I know, I just need more time.”
He grabs a handful of Cleo’s hair and tilts her head back until their eyes meet.
“And I need my fuckin’ money.”
He releases his grip, gently brushing her hair back into place.
She takes a deep, unsteady breath. He strides over to the wall where a mirror hangs crooked.
“I got fired yesterday.”
The man leans against the wall, crossing his arms.
“You still got three holes to earn with.”
She fidgets in her seat then turns to face him.
“Just give me three days.” she pleads.
He takes a few steps and stops in front of her.
“I could take a partial payment now.” he suggests, leering with a greasy smile, rubbing his crotch.
Fear and disgust settle onto her face.
“Two days, just two days, I’ll get it.”
He extends his right index finger and traces circles around her lips. She instantly bats his hand away. He chuckles.
“I got a better idea.”
He bursts into a frenzy of violence - upending the coffee table, the couch, smashing a wooden stool against the wall, toppling a figurine shelf. Cleo leaps from her seat. He grabs her by the hair again.
“Stupid junkie slut!” he yells, slamming her face into the mirror. A second time turns the cracks into fallen shards.
Cleo screams, swinging her arms wildly. He throws her over the flipped couch. She lands on her back, blood holding several tiny fragments of glass to her face.
She lays there winded, sobbing. The dealer looms over her.
“Two days.” he says quietly, then walks to and out the door.
Several minutes pass before Cleo pulls herself to a sitting position - surveying the damage to the room. The ache in her body overlays the one in her soul. She crawls to the slivers of mirror pieces and begins gathering them into a pile, her hands trembling.
The third shard is surly and larger than the rest. It wedges against and cuts into her right middle finger. She drops the razor-sharp piece and watches a fresh stream of blood run onto the floor.
In the bathroom she washes and dresses the wound as well as the cut on her forehead.
Goddamn lowlife pimp bastard. I’d like to cut his balls off and shove them down his fucking throat.
Cleo returns to the living room, finishes piling the shattered pieces together on the mirror’s backing.
She sets the coffee table upright and places the smashed mirror on its surface. She sees her broken reflection - her face warped and fragmented by the many disjoined pieces now stained with her blood.
A long deep sigh and another scan of the room - the rest could wait until tomorrow.
The new day arrives and Cleo drags to the kitchen for her morning coffee ritual. From the periphery something peculiar catches her awareness. She turns and walks in its direction, following disbelief with both eyes.
The mirror that was shattered - by whatever unknown act of strangeness, had been made whole again. Lying in the same spot but completely undamaged by the previous day’s mayhem.
She moves it to the floor, leaning it against the coffee table. She sits cross-legged and engages the image, the person she’d become - all the hopelessness and self-hatred glaring back.
She loses herself, slowly dissolving. The glass darkens, corners peeling upward, a low growling voice enters. The foreboding sound brings her back.
The mirror ripples, the voice grows louder and more menacing. She scrambles away from the object, eyes wide in terror. The room clouds with a graveyard chill, the walls beat a frantic, thunderous rhythm like Hellish war drums - echoing the danger and madness that pounded in her chest.
Cleo balls herself into a corner of the spiraling room - this otherworldly tempest levitating all that surrounds her. Swirling destruction matched with a dreadful howling tear at the frayed fibers of her reason as the space between the floor and ceiling is torn asunder.
