Tag Archives: proof

No Evidence

cottage

© Susan Spaulding

“It happened in there.” Fifteen-year-old Christina Stevens pointed at the opening of the tiny, twisted cottage sitting in the park.

“I’ll have a look.” Senior Officer Angela Conner nodded at the teen then turned to her partner. “Watch him.”

“You bet.” Rookie Officer Jordan Beck grabbed handcuffed seventeen-year-old Sam Kelly by the shoulder.

“Why are you doing this, Chrissie? You know I didn’t do…”

The boy was interrupted by an elbow to the gut. “No talking to the victim, perp.” Beck scowled at the now doubled over high school senior. Then he gave the young blond girl his most charming smile.

After a few minutes, Conner walked back out of the cottage holstering a strange device.

“What’s that?” Chrissie sounded nervous.

“It’s a Temporal Scanner, Ms. Stevens. We’ve been using them for about five years now.” She turned to her partner. “I scanned the time frame when she said the incident occurred. Kids were in and out of here last month drinking beer. Stevens and Kelly were present but never at the same time and never alone together. Uncuff him. There’s no evidence.”

Tears welled up in the girl’s eyes. “But you’re supposed to just believe me.”

I wrote this for the Sunday Photo Fiction Challenge of September 30th. The idea is to use the image above as the prompt for crafting a flash fiction piece no more than 200 words long. My word count is 197.

Yes, I know this story will be especially unpopular in light of the recent testimony given at the Brett Kavanaugh hearings to potentially confirm him as a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. I’m not defending Kavanaugh and I’m not saying that his alleged victim Dr. Christine Ford is not being truthful. I’m also not saying that victims should routinely be disbelieved or ignored. However, I am deeply disturbed by the thought that 100% of all allegations of sexual assault must be believed without any evidence whatsoever and with no consideration for any other circumstances.

In my wee fictional tale, I decided to create the one piece of technology that could impartially examine the evidence at the time in which a crime was to have allegedly occurred. If Temporal Scanners were real, we could look back at any point in history and observe what actually happened. Memories (and any other motivations) would be irrelevant, since investigators could see and hear what really occurred.

It wouldn’t be a matter of belief. We would actually know.

To read other (more acceptable) tales based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.

I’m sorry, but there are always two sides to every story. I’m just presenting the flip side of the coin.

Of Kavanaugh, Ford, and Matters of Credibility

kavanaugh meme

Internet meme found on Facebook – attribution on image

Disclaimer, Trigger Warning, or whatever you want to call it: Depending on your politics and probably several other factors, this essay might tend to raise your blood pressure, so if you have strong feelings about the Brett Kavanaugh SCOTUS confirmation hearings before Congress, you might want to pass it up for something else (Yes, I’m going to get in trouble for posting this).

I’m sure just about everyone in the U.S. and probably a lot of people in other countries are aware of the controversy surrounding the Brett Kavanaugh Congressional hearings to determine if he should be confirmed as the next Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in our nation. Opinions about whether or not to confirm Kavanaugh in the News and Social Media were pretty much split down party lines before the sexual assault allegations made against him by Christine Blasey Ford, but then things just exploded.

I’m not going to go into the details of the allegations. You’re probably already well-versed in the details, and probably most of you reading this (like most everyone else) have already reached a conclusion about the validity of Ford’s claims.

What I am going to do is process the credibility of Kavanaugh and Ford.

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