“No Money? No Problems! At 1-800-TROUBLE your lawyer gets paid when you do.” (Evans, 178). 

“¿Accidente de construcción? Ginarte es la solución… frssssshhhhhhhhhh” “Construction accident? Ginarte is the solution… frssssshhhhhhhhhh” The Panasonic Quasar PV-C1320’s speakers echoed the monotone voice of a narrator, whose low voice annunciated every syllable, fading into a screen of black and white lines drifting across the TV. My dad was an hour into his daily 3 hour slumber of recharging from his job depriving him of a sleep schedule that wakes up to see the sun. He sleeps when the moon glimmers in the abyss of a night sky; he wakes up to see flickering orange street lights. The lights accompany his solitary drive to a parking lot only to drive until the sun crashes into the west’s horizon. His horizon is when the sunlight beams through the curtains of the living room, hitting the white walls that redirect the sunset’s orange light onto his face. The reflection spotlights his face’s wrinkles of his stress to work for money that’ll then go into us. Pressure intruded his mind with jackhammers, while his face was the construction site. They drilled the eyebrow raises from the site of trash bags blocking the cracked sidewalk in Compton in the 80’s, the sighs of disappointment out of realizing he can only reliably work as a bus driver in the 90’s, the twitching eyes of being financially responsible for 2 kids in the 00’s, and yelling at bus riders of an upcoming stop during the 10’s. He maintains a daily return throughout the decades where he returns to a couch that sinks under his weight. His body’s flesh dips from being able to release the tension, but it swells from thinking of having to work the next day. They wrinkle over time and layer over each other to paste themselves in place. The wrinkles were his body’s natural response to adapting to an environment that required him to form these scars of forced endurance, only to receive pieces of paper you can trade for resources that humans need to survive.

“Frssssshhhhhhhhhh… NAdIe lucha para víctimas de accidente como lo hace Ginarte. 1-888-GINARTE. ¡GINARTE!” “Frssssshhhhhhhhhh… NObOdy fights for victims of an accident like Ginarte does. 1-888-GINARTE. GINARTE!” The cube TV flickered away the white and black lines while GINARTE’s hotline flashed in a bright, bold, and white font; the sound popped out of the white noise of a static TV and plateaued to a stable level of 20 green bars. A person in a suit had their arms folded, stared through the screen at my dad who had his arms folded and his eyes closed by the blinds of his eyelids. I imagine that suited person showing the wrinkles to the justices of the Supreme Court, pleading his case to only erase my dad’s wrinkles. 

Works Cited

Evans, Danielle. The Office of Historical Corrections. Riverhead Books, November 10, 2020