Poem: "A Long, Colorful Bracelet"
Nov. 18th, 2017 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis poem is spillover from the November 7, 2017 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by Shirley Barrette. It also fills the "special delivery" square in my 7-1-17 card for the Winter Fest in July Bingo and the "moment" square in my 10-31-17 Time card for the Space and Time Bingo fest. This poem belongs to the Officer Pink thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.
"A Long, Colorful Bracelet"
Ansel led Turq through the lobby
of the Bluehill police station.
While the boy wasn't relaxed yet,
he seemed much less anxious
than he had on previous visits.
People knew him now,
and he had a visitor badge,
so it was becoming familiar.
They sat in the soft interview room
and waited for Tarrant to get off
the telephone at his desk.
Turq fidgeted and put his paperwork
on the coffee table and picked it up again.
"Here, try this," Ansel said as he pulled
the fidget box out from under the end table.
"There's something in here for everyone."
He picked up a black-and-blue snake puzzle,
twisted it around, and passed it to Turq.
The boy straightened it out,
put it into its cube form, and
then dropped it back in the box.
"I don't really like the sharp corners,"
he admitted, shaking his head.
"Koosh doesn't have any corners,"
Ansel said, handing him a rainbow ball.
Turq stroked the soft tassel and smiled.
"Yeah, this is a lot nicer," he said.
"What else is there in the box?"
"See for yourself," Ansel invited,
waving at the collection of fidgets.
Turq found a sliding bead lanyard.
"Oh, this is kind of like a mala," he said.
As Ansel listened, Turq began
to murmur a mantra of some kind,
shifting a bead after each repetition.
Tarrant came in, noticed what
Turq was doing, and sat down
to wait for him to finish.
Soon Turq moved the last bead
and put the lanyard back in the box.
"I finished my paperwork for
the first week, " he said,
handing it to Tarrant.
"How did you do?"
Tarrant asked him.
"I made it three days,
but not always four hours,"
Turq said. "It's still hard
for me to deal with people."
"Okay, we knew that,"
Tarrant said. "It's good that
you worked on three days."
"Yeah, I did litter pickup first
because it's easier," Turq said.
"That one, I made all four hours.
Then I worked at the food pantry
unloading a delivery truck and
helping people carry stuff."
"That sounds good,"
Tarrant said, smiling.
"I didn't do as well with
mending, because that was
indoors," Turq said. "I didn't
even make it half an hour."
"You have plenty of time
to readjust to being indoors,"
Ansel said. "It's okay."
"I think maybe I'll ask them
if I can take home any of it,"
Turq said. "That'd be easier,
since I could work in the gazebo."
Ansel had seen him mending
his own clothes there, so it
sounded like a good solution.
"Let me know if they quibble,"
he said. "We can always find you
other stuff to mend before donating it."
"This all looks great," Tarrant said
as he signed the paperwork and
tucked it into a folder for Turq's file.
"How is your family taking this?"
"Dao and Mingxia agree with you
that society owes me more than I owe it,
but they also think it will be good for me
to work off the guilt I feel," Turq said.
"I'm not sure that will actually come off,
but I'm willing to try just about anything."
"What about the ominous Uncle Fang?"
Tarrant asked with a wry smile.
"You say that like it's a joke, but it's
really not," Turq said, shaking his head.
"One time a cop harassed my sister for
no good reason, and Uncle Fang shredded
that guy. All it took was a threat, not even
an actual lawsuit, and the chief fired him
for mishandling a vulnerable teenager."
"Then I'll try not to get on his bad side,"
Tarrant said. "I think we're doing okay here."
"Yeah, I talked about this with Dao," said Turq.
"He told me that as long as we can agree on
fair terms, there's no need to tell Uncle Fang."
"Well, that's a relief," Tarrant replied.
Turq lifted his head then. "I've also
discovered something else useful that
I can do," he said. "Excuse me."
He slipped out of the interview room,
leaving the door half-open behind him.
Ansel wasn't too concerned, even though
Turq didn't have the kind of badge that
would give him free access to the station,
because Turq really wasn't the sort
to go exploring in police territory.
Besides, there were plenty of people
in the squad room who could serve
as escorts if Turq needed one.
When Ansel stepped into the doorway,
he heard Maude swearing and then
saw her rummaging impatiently through
her desk in search of something.
The caney wriggled out from under it
with a small object in his mouth,
which he dropped at her feet.
"What the heck?" Maude said.
The caney nosed it closer to her.
The tip of his tail dusted the floor.
"My key?" she said, picking it up
by the Protect and Serve tab.
"You found my motorcycle key!
But how? I've looked everywhere."
A momentary shimmer, and then
Turq stood where the caney had been.
"It fell down the crack between your desk
and the next one," Turq explained. "You
touched it, so it smelled like you, so I
knew where it was. All I had to do was
go pry it out of its hiding place."
"Wow," she said. "Thank you."
Turq just nodded and slipped
back into the interview room.
"Sorry for the delay," he said
as everyone sat back down.
"But yeah, I can find things."
"That sounds useful," Ansel said.
"It was nice of you to help Maude."
"I figure it's another thing that I
can do to help people," Turq said,
"along with the community service."
"Well, congratulations on your progress,"
Tarrant said. "I had high hopes, so I
got you a gift, special delivery."
He handed Turq a bracelet
made of black-and-blue paracord
with a metal police shield in the center.
It closed with a sturdy plastic clasp.
Ansel recognized the style.
"That's a police alert bracelet,"
he said. "It works similar to
a medic alert bracelet does.
Turn the center plate over."
There was just enough slack
in the paracord for the metal part
to twist, revealing the back which read,
No restraint of any kind, along with
an alphanumeric code for verification
and Ansel's station contact info.
"It's beautiful," Turq said,
rubbing a thumb over the band,
"but I'm not sure that I can wear it."
"Oh, why not?" Tarrant asked.
"I picked this one because it's
similar to Ansel's, and I thought
the paracord would appeal to you."
"Yes, mine has a shield with
my badge number on it," Ansel said.
"I like the paracord, but ..." Turq said,
and then switched to rubbing his wrist.
"Anything that locks around my arm is
liable to take my head to bad places."
"It doesn't lock, and it can't be used
to hold you," Tarrant assured him.
"See, the clasp is designed to break
under a certain amount of stress,
in case it snags on something."
"I don't know," Turq said,
but he hadn't put it down yet.
"What about clipping it to
your belt loop?" Ansel said.
"You usually wear jeans."
"Yeah, that'll work," Turq said, and
fastened it to the front of his pants
so that it lay flat. "Will they see it?"
"Yes, if they're paying attention,
and if not, then you can tell them
about it," Tarrant said. "These
aren't as common as medic alerts,
but we know to look for them."
"There are fire alerts, too,"
Ansel said. "Some soups
should never be sprayed with
a fire extinguisher, even if they're
on fire. It was in a class I took
about handling cape incidents."
"Plus the support jewelry,"
Tarrant added. "My kids are
too little, but my wife has a necklace."
"So does Janie," said Ansel. "Hers
reads, Some heroes wear capes,
mine wears kevlar. Then it has
my badge number on the back."
"The one with the little blue jewel?"
Turq said. "Yeah, I've seen it.
I think that it's adorable."
"She wears it to show
how much she cares for me,"
Ansel said. "It's a sign of
belonging, not just support."
"Yeah, that's what I want too,"
Turq said with a sigh. "Family,
home, a place to belong ...
but I'm such a mess."
"You have it," Ansel said,
dropping his right hand onto
Turq's shoulder. "Never doubt it."
"You really are making good progress,
Turq," said Tarrant. "You have people
who care about you now, and you are
taking advantage of your chances
to put right what went wrong."
Turq sniffed and dragged
his sleeve across his nose.
"I'm trying, but it feels like
this will go on forever, and
my memories are awful."
A moment of atonement had
somehow turned itself into
a longer quest for redemption.
"Not all of them," Ansel said.
"Good memories are like charms.
Each is special. You collect them,
one by one, until one day when you
look back and discover that they
make a long, colorful bracelet."
"Like a mala," Turq said,
his gaze flicking to the box.
Just like that, Ansel could feel
something sliding into place, like
one of the beads on the lanyard.
"Through the virtues I collect
by giving and other perfections,
may I become a Buddha for
the benefit of all," Turq said.
And with that, Ansel thought,
Turq would become ready for
the next bead, the next step
back toward civilization.
* * *
Notes:
"Good memories are like charms ... Each is special. You collect them, one by one, until one day you look back and discover they make a long, colorful bracelet."
-- James Patterson
http://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/bracelet.html
This is a sitemap of the Bluehill police station on the west side of Concord Boulevard and its parallel train track. North of the police station is a row of buildings with the old town hall in the center, flanked by others of mixed use, and one separate. There is an attached parking garage behind the row by the railroad tracks. Open parking is around the other sides of the buildings.
See a floor plan of the police station. A spacious lobby of bulletproof glass opens into the public-accessible portion of the police station. Most citizens need either the administrative office, the large conference room (with smart glass), the administrative office, or the records room which are adjacent to the lobby. The squad room is off to the right, in yellow. The Special Victims Unit has a soft interview room at the back of the squad room. (Contrast this with the hard interrogation rooms.) The small storage space below the canteen is the department's physical and emotional first aid station, wedged in alongside their emergency medical supplies.
Fidgets are small objects designed to be soothing. They are slowly becoming more common in local-America but are ubiquitous in Terramagne-America where you can find them in most waiting rooms, quiet rooms, etc. While many people look down on fidgeting, the fact is we bred for it throughout most of human history because everyone's hands used to be busy tanning hide, knapping flint, shelling peas, spinning wool, or the zillion other chores that used to take up most of life. Now a lot of tasks aren't as manual, but the built-in urge to be doing something with those hands still remains. One solution is to revive a classic craft such as crochet; another is fidgets. Here's a good article on selecting the right fidget for your needs.
A snake puzzle is a long block of linked pieces that you can twist into different shapes. They are most often made out of plastic in two contrasting colors.
A koosh ball is a mop of tiny rubber strands fastened together in the middle. It feels soft and floppy, and is pretty safe to throw.
This is the fidget bead lanyard. It works like this. Because of how the beads slide, it isn't just a toy -- you can also use it to keep count of things such as scores or knitting rows. In T-America, some support groups use them to mark mood, stress levels, or other factors. You can buy one or make your own.
A Buddhist mala is used for counting prayers. This site sells many different styles. You can also make your own mala. It doesn't even have to be Buddhist, as many religions have some kind of prayer beads. What people say with it goes by various names. The Chinese dharani is one. Mantra is another, and there are lists of these to explore. Then there is niànfó which relates to the Pure Land school of Buddhism. This article on how to choose a mantra has examples in both English and Sanskrit. Because Buddhism is such a widespread tradition, it has prayers in many languages -- and some mantras are actually fragments of another language brought in, whose pronunciation has changed over time.
L-America has only medic alert jewelry, but T-America has more kinds of first responder alerts. Locally, some versions have USB or smartphone options. The metal and silicone style is similar to what T-America uses for T-mem, and those T-mem bracelets can store a lot of information -- whole medical files, reference articles, care plans, etc. As here, they may have words on them naming the condition on the outward facing surface, or only a symbol on the outside with details discreetly on the inner surface. Tarrant has correctly extrapolated that Turq doesn't like to advertise his vulnerabilities.
T-America has alert jewelry for all the emergency services, not just medical care. Turq receives a police alert bracelet that says "no restraint of any kind" with a verification code and Ansel's contact information. While citizens aren't obligated to wear alert jewelry, if they choose to do so, it makes responders liable for damages if they ignored it because they're trained to check precisely to avoid complications. Turq's police alert bracelet resembles this batch. It's made out of paracord, which has many survival uses. Even though Turq isn't comfortable wearing it around his wrist, many jeans have two or more adjacent belt loops near the front, making it possible to display the outward face of the bracelet in a similar fashion as when worn on a wrist.
This is a fire alert bracelet in a similar style.
Here is an example of a metal police alert bracelet.
This is Ansel's police bracelet with his badge number on it, so you can see what an officer's own jewelry looks like.
Support jewelry is distinguished in different ways. A memorial bracelet usually has a picture and/or end-of-watch date. Items meant for relatives often come like this one, so the wearer can mark their relationship to the indicated officer.
This is a bracelet with "Some heroes wear capes, mine wears kevlar" showing a NYPD badge. Janie's necklace with the same quote has Ansel's badge number on the back.
Here is Maud's motorcycle keychain.
In L-America, most fire extinguishers discharge obnoxious chemicals that can cause significant problems. However, there's at least one that's actually skin-safe. T-America's higher technology means that skin-safe fire extinguishers are more common. Annoyingly, L-America discourages people from trying to extinguish even the smallest fires, but in reality, all that means is a fair number of desperate people will try to put it out with no training rather than watch their valuables burn. The infantilization is both offensive and dangerous. T-America has developed safer fire extinguishers and trains people in knowing when to put out a fire vs. when to run for help. Aside from spray extinguishers, fire blankets offer another safe and messless option that is not only easy to use for putting out fires but offers protection while escaping a house fire.
Belonging is a fundamental need for most people, for a wide range of reasons. This poses a grave risk for people whose mental or physical disabilities make it hard for them to interact and/or make other people wish to avoid them. T-America generally handles this better than L-America and makes deliberate efforts to reach out and include people. Right now this kind of support is helping Turq make his way back to society. Understand how to create belonging and how to help other people belong.
"A Long, Colorful Bracelet"
Ansel led Turq through the lobby
of the Bluehill police station.
While the boy wasn't relaxed yet,
he seemed much less anxious
than he had on previous visits.
People knew him now,
and he had a visitor badge,
so it was becoming familiar.
They sat in the soft interview room
and waited for Tarrant to get off
the telephone at his desk.
Turq fidgeted and put his paperwork
on the coffee table and picked it up again.
"Here, try this," Ansel said as he pulled
the fidget box out from under the end table.
"There's something in here for everyone."
He picked up a black-and-blue snake puzzle,
twisted it around, and passed it to Turq.
The boy straightened it out,
put it into its cube form, and
then dropped it back in the box.
"I don't really like the sharp corners,"
he admitted, shaking his head.
"Koosh doesn't have any corners,"
Ansel said, handing him a rainbow ball.
Turq stroked the soft tassel and smiled.
"Yeah, this is a lot nicer," he said.
"What else is there in the box?"
"See for yourself," Ansel invited,
waving at the collection of fidgets.
Turq found a sliding bead lanyard.
"Oh, this is kind of like a mala," he said.
As Ansel listened, Turq began
to murmur a mantra of some kind,
shifting a bead after each repetition.
Tarrant came in, noticed what
Turq was doing, and sat down
to wait for him to finish.
Soon Turq moved the last bead
and put the lanyard back in the box.
"I finished my paperwork for
the first week, " he said,
handing it to Tarrant.
"How did you do?"
Tarrant asked him.
"I made it three days,
but not always four hours,"
Turq said. "It's still hard
for me to deal with people."
"Okay, we knew that,"
Tarrant said. "It's good that
you worked on three days."
"Yeah, I did litter pickup first
because it's easier," Turq said.
"That one, I made all four hours.
Then I worked at the food pantry
unloading a delivery truck and
helping people carry stuff."
"That sounds good,"
Tarrant said, smiling.
"I didn't do as well with
mending, because that was
indoors," Turq said. "I didn't
even make it half an hour."
"You have plenty of time
to readjust to being indoors,"
Ansel said. "It's okay."
"I think maybe I'll ask them
if I can take home any of it,"
Turq said. "That'd be easier,
since I could work in the gazebo."
Ansel had seen him mending
his own clothes there, so it
sounded like a good solution.
"Let me know if they quibble,"
he said. "We can always find you
other stuff to mend before donating it."
"This all looks great," Tarrant said
as he signed the paperwork and
tucked it into a folder for Turq's file.
"How is your family taking this?"
"Dao and Mingxia agree with you
that society owes me more than I owe it,
but they also think it will be good for me
to work off the guilt I feel," Turq said.
"I'm not sure that will actually come off,
but I'm willing to try just about anything."
"What about the ominous Uncle Fang?"
Tarrant asked with a wry smile.
"You say that like it's a joke, but it's
really not," Turq said, shaking his head.
"One time a cop harassed my sister for
no good reason, and Uncle Fang shredded
that guy. All it took was a threat, not even
an actual lawsuit, and the chief fired him
for mishandling a vulnerable teenager."
"Then I'll try not to get on his bad side,"
Tarrant said. "I think we're doing okay here."
"Yeah, I talked about this with Dao," said Turq.
"He told me that as long as we can agree on
fair terms, there's no need to tell Uncle Fang."
"Well, that's a relief," Tarrant replied.
Turq lifted his head then. "I've also
discovered something else useful that
I can do," he said. "Excuse me."
He slipped out of the interview room,
leaving the door half-open behind him.
Ansel wasn't too concerned, even though
Turq didn't have the kind of badge that
would give him free access to the station,
because Turq really wasn't the sort
to go exploring in police territory.
Besides, there were plenty of people
in the squad room who could serve
as escorts if Turq needed one.
When Ansel stepped into the doorway,
he heard Maude swearing and then
saw her rummaging impatiently through
her desk in search of something.
The caney wriggled out from under it
with a small object in his mouth,
which he dropped at her feet.
"What the heck?" Maude said.
The caney nosed it closer to her.
The tip of his tail dusted the floor.
"My key?" she said, picking it up
by the Protect and Serve tab.
"You found my motorcycle key!
But how? I've looked everywhere."
A momentary shimmer, and then
Turq stood where the caney had been.
"It fell down the crack between your desk
and the next one," Turq explained. "You
touched it, so it smelled like you, so I
knew where it was. All I had to do was
go pry it out of its hiding place."
"Wow," she said. "Thank you."
Turq just nodded and slipped
back into the interview room.
"Sorry for the delay," he said
as everyone sat back down.
"But yeah, I can find things."
"That sounds useful," Ansel said.
"It was nice of you to help Maude."
"I figure it's another thing that I
can do to help people," Turq said,
"along with the community service."
"Well, congratulations on your progress,"
Tarrant said. "I had high hopes, so I
got you a gift, special delivery."
He handed Turq a bracelet
made of black-and-blue paracord
with a metal police shield in the center.
It closed with a sturdy plastic clasp.
Ansel recognized the style.
"That's a police alert bracelet,"
he said. "It works similar to
a medic alert bracelet does.
Turn the center plate over."
There was just enough slack
in the paracord for the metal part
to twist, revealing the back which read,
No restraint of any kind, along with
an alphanumeric code for verification
and Ansel's station contact info.
"It's beautiful," Turq said,
rubbing a thumb over the band,
"but I'm not sure that I can wear it."
"Oh, why not?" Tarrant asked.
"I picked this one because it's
similar to Ansel's, and I thought
the paracord would appeal to you."
"Yes, mine has a shield with
my badge number on it," Ansel said.
"I like the paracord, but ..." Turq said,
and then switched to rubbing his wrist.
"Anything that locks around my arm is
liable to take my head to bad places."
"It doesn't lock, and it can't be used
to hold you," Tarrant assured him.
"See, the clasp is designed to break
under a certain amount of stress,
in case it snags on something."
"I don't know," Turq said,
but he hadn't put it down yet.
"What about clipping it to
your belt loop?" Ansel said.
"You usually wear jeans."
"Yeah, that'll work," Turq said, and
fastened it to the front of his pants
so that it lay flat. "Will they see it?"
"Yes, if they're paying attention,
and if not, then you can tell them
about it," Tarrant said. "These
aren't as common as medic alerts,
but we know to look for them."
"There are fire alerts, too,"
Ansel said. "Some soups
should never be sprayed with
a fire extinguisher, even if they're
on fire. It was in a class I took
about handling cape incidents."
"Plus the support jewelry,"
Tarrant added. "My kids are
too little, but my wife has a necklace."
"So does Janie," said Ansel. "Hers
reads, Some heroes wear capes,
mine wears kevlar. Then it has
my badge number on the back."
"The one with the little blue jewel?"
Turq said. "Yeah, I've seen it.
I think that it's adorable."
"She wears it to show
how much she cares for me,"
Ansel said. "It's a sign of
belonging, not just support."
"Yeah, that's what I want too,"
Turq said with a sigh. "Family,
home, a place to belong ...
but I'm such a mess."
"You have it," Ansel said,
dropping his right hand onto
Turq's shoulder. "Never doubt it."
"You really are making good progress,
Turq," said Tarrant. "You have people
who care about you now, and you are
taking advantage of your chances
to put right what went wrong."
Turq sniffed and dragged
his sleeve across his nose.
"I'm trying, but it feels like
this will go on forever, and
my memories are awful."
A moment of atonement had
somehow turned itself into
a longer quest for redemption.
"Not all of them," Ansel said.
"Good memories are like charms.
Each is special. You collect them,
one by one, until one day when you
look back and discover that they
make a long, colorful bracelet."
"Like a mala," Turq said,
his gaze flicking to the box.
Just like that, Ansel could feel
something sliding into place, like
one of the beads on the lanyard.
"Through the virtues I collect
by giving and other perfections,
may I become a Buddha for
the benefit of all," Turq said.
And with that, Ansel thought,
Turq would become ready for
the next bead, the next step
back toward civilization.
* * *
Notes:
"Good memories are like charms ... Each is special. You collect them, one by one, until one day you look back and discover they make a long, colorful bracelet."
-- James Patterson
http://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/bracelet.html
This is a sitemap of the Bluehill police station on the west side of Concord Boulevard and its parallel train track. North of the police station is a row of buildings with the old town hall in the center, flanked by others of mixed use, and one separate. There is an attached parking garage behind the row by the railroad tracks. Open parking is around the other sides of the buildings.
See a floor plan of the police station. A spacious lobby of bulletproof glass opens into the public-accessible portion of the police station. Most citizens need either the administrative office, the large conference room (with smart glass), the administrative office, or the records room which are adjacent to the lobby. The squad room is off to the right, in yellow. The Special Victims Unit has a soft interview room at the back of the squad room. (Contrast this with the hard interrogation rooms.) The small storage space below the canteen is the department's physical and emotional first aid station, wedged in alongside their emergency medical supplies.
Fidgets are small objects designed to be soothing. They are slowly becoming more common in local-America but are ubiquitous in Terramagne-America where you can find them in most waiting rooms, quiet rooms, etc. While many people look down on fidgeting, the fact is we bred for it throughout most of human history because everyone's hands used to be busy tanning hide, knapping flint, shelling peas, spinning wool, or the zillion other chores that used to take up most of life. Now a lot of tasks aren't as manual, but the built-in urge to be doing something with those hands still remains. One solution is to revive a classic craft such as crochet; another is fidgets. Here's a good article on selecting the right fidget for your needs.
A snake puzzle is a long block of linked pieces that you can twist into different shapes. They are most often made out of plastic in two contrasting colors.
A koosh ball is a mop of tiny rubber strands fastened together in the middle. It feels soft and floppy, and is pretty safe to throw.
This is the fidget bead lanyard. It works like this. Because of how the beads slide, it isn't just a toy -- you can also use it to keep count of things such as scores or knitting rows. In T-America, some support groups use them to mark mood, stress levels, or other factors. You can buy one or make your own.
A Buddhist mala is used for counting prayers. This site sells many different styles. You can also make your own mala. It doesn't even have to be Buddhist, as many religions have some kind of prayer beads. What people say with it goes by various names. The Chinese dharani is one. Mantra is another, and there are lists of these to explore. Then there is niànfó which relates to the Pure Land school of Buddhism. This article on how to choose a mantra has examples in both English and Sanskrit. Because Buddhism is such a widespread tradition, it has prayers in many languages -- and some mantras are actually fragments of another language brought in, whose pronunciation has changed over time.
L-America has only medic alert jewelry, but T-America has more kinds of first responder alerts. Locally, some versions have USB or smartphone options. The metal and silicone style is similar to what T-America uses for T-mem, and those T-mem bracelets can store a lot of information -- whole medical files, reference articles, care plans, etc. As here, they may have words on them naming the condition on the outward facing surface, or only a symbol on the outside with details discreetly on the inner surface. Tarrant has correctly extrapolated that Turq doesn't like to advertise his vulnerabilities.
T-America has alert jewelry for all the emergency services, not just medical care. Turq receives a police alert bracelet that says "no restraint of any kind" with a verification code and Ansel's contact information. While citizens aren't obligated to wear alert jewelry, if they choose to do so, it makes responders liable for damages if they ignored it because they're trained to check precisely to avoid complications. Turq's police alert bracelet resembles this batch. It's made out of paracord, which has many survival uses. Even though Turq isn't comfortable wearing it around his wrist, many jeans have two or more adjacent belt loops near the front, making it possible to display the outward face of the bracelet in a similar fashion as when worn on a wrist.
This is a fire alert bracelet in a similar style.
Here is an example of a metal police alert bracelet.
This is Ansel's police bracelet with his badge number on it, so you can see what an officer's own jewelry looks like.
Support jewelry is distinguished in different ways. A memorial bracelet usually has a picture and/or end-of-watch date. Items meant for relatives often come like this one, so the wearer can mark their relationship to the indicated officer.
This is a bracelet with "Some heroes wear capes, mine wears kevlar" showing a NYPD badge. Janie's necklace with the same quote has Ansel's badge number on the back.
Here is Maud's motorcycle keychain.
In L-America, most fire extinguishers discharge obnoxious chemicals that can cause significant problems. However, there's at least one that's actually skin-safe. T-America's higher technology means that skin-safe fire extinguishers are more common. Annoyingly, L-America discourages people from trying to extinguish even the smallest fires, but in reality, all that means is a fair number of desperate people will try to put it out with no training rather than watch their valuables burn. The infantilization is both offensive and dangerous. T-America has developed safer fire extinguishers and trains people in knowing when to put out a fire vs. when to run for help. Aside from spray extinguishers, fire blankets offer another safe and messless option that is not only easy to use for putting out fires but offers protection while escaping a house fire.
Belonging is a fundamental need for most people, for a wide range of reasons. This poses a grave risk for people whose mental or physical disabilities make it hard for them to interact and/or make other people wish to avoid them. T-America generally handles this better than L-America and makes deliberate efforts to reach out and include people. Right now this kind of support is helping Turq make his way back to society. Understand how to create belonging and how to help other people belong.
*sigh*
Date: 2017-11-20 03:26 am (UTC)