Academy Murders: You Built That

She awoke from a dream. She was Hester Prynne with that goddamn letter A sewn to her garment on her chest. She didn’t know she’d go back so far literarily. Kim had just read Anthem for the second time while in jail. They didn’t allow for We the Living for some strange reason. As she rose out her hotel rack, she noticed another spider. She had no clue if it was the original mother spider, but she reckoned so.

The sight of another life form gave her life. She didn’t care whether it was a spider. Most people would have probably hit it with a shoe or asked for a bell boy to kill it.

Kim stared at it. On its spindly legs she found grace. Its certain motions belied the fact that it was just another arachnid. Once she realized that the spider was of course not the same one from the cell, she knew that. She had to remind herself, but she knew.

It was dark and the sky was just unwinding glimpses of the rising sun. She dressed. At a desk adjacent to the TV, she wrote down in detail what she would do with the time that would be handed down.

On legal sheets, the yellow papers kept swishing back against the cardboard. She couldn’t use her phone as it was like a burner, a standard flip phone not very smart. Nonetheless, she turned her pages rhymically and she jotted with purity that bordered on mania.

She kept it in check, however. With the time she had before she would speak with Yawquisha for their morning notes, she put down her thoughts. Everything just poured from her soul all in the service of her mind.

Then, the phone rang.

“It’s not on schedule….”

“But it is always on time!” Yawquisha exclaimed.

“How are you doing Sis from another Miss?”

“I’m just glad to know you’re still in the world.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. There’s a long lasting amount of spiritual fuel that I have in reserve.”

“It sounds like you are prepared for nonfiction. We can start you off with For the New Intellectual.”

“That sounds great.” Kim sighed. “I just need some knowledge to show the judge that I didn’t commit any murder. That the first is the same as the second only the coward won’t come forward in regard to this current case.”

“That’s alright. If you need time to find yourself, to dig deep and discover who Kim Jergensen actually is, take your time. That’s the precious commodity that you own. You have a chance to alter your reality. You hold the keys to your own liberty.”

The words sunk into her consciousness. Yawquisha just had that effect on her. She could tell the difference in between. They taught her in Marine OCS and detective training and the basics of the Academy of the FBI. Now, she read Yawquisha and recognized that she was the truth.

“I—I have to thank you,” Kim admitted. She didn’t say it with any humility, just complete gratitude. She rolled her tongue in her mouth. “I must. For the sake of justice, I have to stand on my word and thank you for being such a good friend. All this time we’ve been together like sisters and we just needed the scariest situations to guide us through our friendship.”

Yawquisha accepted and simply said: Thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“Yes. You were the one that allowed my audience to grow. You were the one who sent me to those places to get stories. You built that.”

“I appreciate it.”