Ficly

Harsh

It was a massless, faceless, insensate thing that sentenced me. Judges and lawyers are for those who can afford them, and the high school girl I was could not hope to see anyone but the police with their shackles and ubiquitous computers that took in evidence and spat out lives. Three words had appeared on the police station computer screen to seal my fate: Guilty of Possession.
I had inhaled deeply the smoke of forgetfulness that night and awoke to pounding on the door of our tiny apartment. I had done far too much pot, overslept and missed school entirely. My blood seemed to turn to ice as the truant officers burst in, and I knew before my freedom ended that the smell would betray me. They led me away in cuffs, fed my name into the Central Computer, and I was sentenced to seven years before the sun set. I was sixteen, but no one had been tried as a juvenile in many decades. American laws punished all as adults, usually to the maximum, and seemed to grow harsher every year. It was 2023.

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