The Scene

by Alan Bardsley

I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’d watched this scene a dozen times or more in movies and on TV series, but they can’t broadcast the acrid smell that cuts through the cold, dead air to bite at your nostrils and even Dolby never quite captures the mournful echo of your own footsteps on this hard, hard tile and so, I was stunned as I entered the room. I hated the men that led me in, so practiced in their roles, and I could tell from the glances they exchanged, there had been conversations. They held secret thoughts about my life and my world that I would never know as I followed, vulnerable, behind them. A latch snapped to open a long stainless steel drawer and I grabbed the detective’s sleeve as the technician pulled back the crisp white sheet. “Is that your son?”

6S

Alan Bardsley, author of The Beat, was introduced to 6S by a friend. He likes it.