story: “Comfort”

author: Jamel Brinkley

year: 2020, Ploughshares

where: Quarantine, Duja Tower, Dubai

note: Today, I ventured to the gym for the first time in months. I booked an appointment and I had the 52nd floor all to myself with a view of Rashid Tower, the first skyscraper in the UAE.

a line: “Other than the natural redness of the wife’s hair and the fact that she, like her husband, doesn’t actually wear glasses, the photographs don’t show anything different. Officer Brody’s wife loves him. She loves his attention and his devotion to their boy and girl. It’s easy for Simone to imagine him as a wonderful husband and father during that time; and maybe he still is now, however long later, the best man he has ever been in his life, committed to the role, identifying completely with the idea of his innocence..”

theme(s): Police brutality, loss, healing