“A small person in polyester blends”

A woman on a scooter gets broadsided by an SUV that was speeding up to beat a red light. I’m the first cop on the scene and she dies in my arms. Then my lieutenant, a skidmark of a man, makes me deliver her personal effects to her family because I’m “sympathetic and good at talking and shit” and also because he’s too big of a coward to do it himself. The husband is barely coherent but has obviously told his two small daughters, because one is catatonic and the other was walking in circles, sobbing weakly and murmuring, “I’m sorry I didn’t pick up my toys. I’m so sorry, Mommy. I’ll pick them up every day from now on, I promise.” I hand over my pathetic offering in a battered ziplock bag. I’ve tried to clean everything off but you can still see traces of blood in the ridges of her iPod. Looking into her husband’s eyes reminds me of an Anish Kapoor installation I’d just seen — a rigid structure containing an endless black void — a cacophony of nothingness.

— This anonymous NYPD officer wrote very freely about what her life is like.