"You need to understand!" the clear, sharp edged voice whined, protesting her crime. "I should not be here!"
The night was overhead and Olivia's wrist was in cuffs. She pressed her nails in the wooden chairs and seethed.
"Says, nearly every criminal in the world," the sheriff managed to speak out through the big bite of his taco. "Every criminal in the world!" he repeated again. He was sitting across the desk, opposite to her, shoulders barely visible above the desk.
Olivia pressed her lips in a thin line and furrowed her eyebrows, glaring at the sheriff. Someone snickered beside her.
"Yes, very well said, Mr. Sheriff!" Ralph exclaimed, his chocolate eyes having a glaring competition with Olivia's glassy green ones. "Liars like her, should be punished harshly!"
Controlling the utmost urge to bang Ralph's head on sheriff's desk and pull each of his hair out, one by one, Olivia sufficed with stomping her foot against the ground.
"It was an act of self defense!" she protested the accusations. "The street was lonely and he was dressed in creepy black, thief-like outfit, trying make small talk! For all I thought, he could be a rapist!"
The small, chubby cheeked, Sheriff rolled his thick black mustaches upwards, subtly nodding. His beady black eyes moved to Ralph, expecting a counter attack. His constant chomping giving the two some background music.
"He wasn't there to make a small talk or steal—" Olivia scoffed at Ralph's justification, "—he just wanted a bottle of water!" Ralph argued for his friend. "Leo isn't the type of person to chat on street, especially an ugly stranger," he threw a dirty scowl towards Olivia, who only rolled her eyes in defense.
This Ralph person was the one who came at Olivia, with his phone's screen blinking hideous red and blue colours and shouting, "You are under arrest! Bloody Murder! You are under arrest!", after his wannabe water-bottle-thief of a friend, Leo, had pressed his lush lips to the ground. Passed out cold and gratefully not dead.
"Right," Olivia drawled out, clenching and unclenching her fists. "Because your rich, innocent, friend couldn't afford a bottle of water, so he tried to steal my bag and what…run the fuck away!" she nearly spat in Ralph's face, which just made him plaster a grossed out expression, wiping his face with his sleeves.
The chomping increased.
"Yeah, because the bag was gifted to you by Queen Victoria herself! Right? So new, so filled with riches," he muttered eyeing her worn out black bag, whose handle was now on the verge of tearing off.
"So what if she did? It still not justifies why he stole and tried to run away, with property that wasn't his, when I clearly declined having water!" Olivia retorted, puffing her cheeks. She was wasting her time, every moment was precious for her father's life and it was just being wasted quarreling with a brown haired rodent lookalike.
Sheriff too eyed Ralph in curiosity, his mouth still chewing the taco bite. "Common, tell us," he urged. "Tell us," he repeated, chomping.
Ralph withdrew a breath and answered, "My friend suffers from Polydipsia," there was a gasp from Olivia, the Sheriff remained silent and clearly clueless. "It is a characteristic symptom in diabetes. People who fail to take their medications suffer from this. Usually they feel extremely thirsty and weak, and if they aren't aided in time they can pass out from exhaustion or have a seizure."
The office was stunned into silence. Not even the uncharacteristic chomping of the sheriff filled the deafening gap. Olivia was biting her lip, her eyes staring at the ground beneath. She looked evidently guilty, without a doubt.
The Sheriff just stared at his food like an alien item from Mars, appetite lost in oblivion. But the grim silence couldn't be held longer as the there was an untimely burp and a fart.
Two pairs of eyes glanced at the slightly blushing Sheriff; Olivia just pressed her nose between her thumb and the forefinger.
"What were you eating Mister, toxic nuclear waste? The smell is acidic!" Ralph commented, getting up from his seat and coughing. Fanning the air around him.
The sheriff just shrugged casually.
"I really gotta go," Ralph said, looking at his phone screen. "Can I trust you with justice, sheriff?" he asked, giving a cold glare to Olivia.
"O-of course son! Go on! Go on!" the sheriff nodded frantically and gestured the door.
"Adios freak face, see you…" Ralph pretended to think while tapping his chin, "Never." He ended harshly and turned away from the embodiment of nuisance, also called, Olivia Stevenson.
The sheriff's back beady eyes now focused on a weary Olivia. His chomping still continued.
"I did not know he had a condition—"the sheriff put up a chubby hand to stop Olivia from speaking further.
"he should have told me—" Olivia
spoke nevertheless, but the sheriff pushed the hand closer to her face.
She dragged out a sigh.
"Community service," he said after a long pause of staring at her face and her looking at his taco. "That you'll do, that you'll do." He confirmed, nodding and looking around his desk for some papers.
Olivia's hungry glance turned that of despair, "You cannot do this to me!" she whined, her eyebrows rose high and her lower lip turned into a pout.
Sheriff glanced at her, closed his eyes, took a deep breath and stood up. His nine month pregnant belly rising along him. "You are not cute, don't do this." He said in a solemn voice, "Not cute, not cute," he repeated again. "Gonna gimme nightmares, nightmares."
Olivia frowned as the sheriff bent down; still searching heaven knows what, his butt wiggling in the air. Olivia couldn't afford to do community service, when she had to manage $15000 in three days. She sighed, her eyes still fixated at Sheriff's saucer like butt.
With another sigh, she banged her head against the desk, slowly of course, until the sheriff shoved a pile of papers in front of her.
"There you go, go-go," he said, gesturing the pile of papers. "Community service at the police station! You gotta proof read them, read them!" he said with a triumphant look on his face. "A year would be nice? Nice?" He asked her, bending down, his hands involuntarily stroking his belly.
Olivia gave him her trademark scowl along with a bone curling glare, before the Sheriff added, "For six months!"
Olivia pulled the papers towards her as a spider crawled over them. "Why you little…" she cursed under her breath and crushed the spider with the sheriff's bottle kept nearby. With 'SPLAT' sound and a fearful and disgusted expression from the sheriff, she picked up the stack and moved towards the desk and chair labelled as 'detention chair'.
"When do I start?" she asked, with an eyebrow raised.
"Tomorrow morning, how about 5-9 AM?" he asked in return, fidgeting in his place.
"It's not like I have anything to do, you already stole my life," she muttered and hopped on the desk. "Can I stay the night?"
"Here, here?" he asked, blinking in bewilderment, his chomping resuming.
The dull lighted police station was engulfed in an eerie silence, with just two police men. One who focused more on sleeping and the one who focused more on eating, it would be a piece of cake to escape from here and never come back, but Olivia decided against it and planned to stay.
If she were good, she could coax the sheriff in giving her a loan…maybe?
Olivia nodded in reply as Sheriff's finger pointed at the empty cell in the station.
"There, There?" he pointed.
Never in the seventeen years of her life, had Olivia dreamt that would she be walking inside a prison cell with her own accord. Well she didn't imagine to go bankrupt and live a life of poverty, but life is as unpredictable as it comes.
She walked inside the cell and sat on the steel bed, looking out at the full moon through the metal bars of the small, square window on the wall.
She folded her hands together and kneeled on her knees, on the ground, her elbows placed on the bed.
She closed her eyes and smiled, "Dear Lord, thank you for giving me a life. Thank you for giving me a golden childhood, even though it was short. Thank you for giving me loving parents, tough the time I had was extremely short, but I'm sure people out there have it much worse than me. I believe in you Lord, Mother asked me to, I have faith in you and just like you helped me through this day, and all the days in the past, you will also be there beside me in future. Please, make me a capable person so that I can help those whom I love, give me strength to cope with the adversities of life and protect me from all the evil forces out there. Amen."
She stayed still, for a little while, after whispering out her prayer like a daily routine. "I love you mother, please take care of me and dad." She ended with a whisper and stood up.
The sheriff, who was observing her all this while, smiled. "She's like a pineapple, pineapple," he muttered shaking his head and opening a case file. "Hard on the outside, sweet and sour on the inside," he continued picking up a pen, "Sweet-sour." He repeated while stifling a yawn.
Now he was just waiting for it to finally begin, the community service.