Courtroom

They sat there in silence, everyone facing the north. Most of them had no idea which direction north was or why they were facing that way. The reason had long since been lost. The room was mostly empty, save for the five people currently occupying it. two seated at one table, and two at another with one person standing close to a door in the room. The entire room was finished in a light mahogany, ceiling to floor. It was as if these people had walked inside a tree, but along the walls were hundreds of cameras, aimed in various angles at the people seated in the room. There was no feeling of privacy in there.

The standing man quickly moved his hand to his ear, nodded and started speaking, “Rise, the honorable and venerable authority represented by Magistrate Adla shall now be processed.” Everyone in the room quickly got to their feet as if there were a race to see who could get there first. The slowest to her feet was slightly hunched over and obviously sleep deprived. Adla entered and swiftly got behind a raised desk, grabbed a wooden gavel and rapped it lightly on block of wood.

“Sit.” Adla commanded lightly, but with authority. Everyone in the room complied. “Emmi Wryhta, rise. You stand accused by the court.”

Emmi stood up and let her gaze flow freely over the room. Not a single person in attendance. No one came to the courts anymore, not after the last time when everyone in the room was thrown in jail for muttering disagreement, no, now they all stay home and watch on the Court Network, 400 channels of live decisions, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, “Judgement for the people.” What a tag line, she thought.

Emmi sunk deeper into her our thought as the words coming out of Adla’s mouth drifted by her. She found herself fixated on a camera right in front of her. She wondered how people could just sit there and watch, hour after hour, of meaningless charges thrown on people nowadays. She recalled watching once, only for a few minutes when the charges read against a twelve year old boy, “Wearing a head covering in public without the requisite cancer patch so people wouldn’t panic.” It was disgusting, it even made her ill just thinking about it now. She wondered if her face was paling or getting a green tinge to it, would people notice?

“How do you plead?” The words brought her back to the situation right in front of her, standing in a court room. How did she plead? Most people did it on their hands and knees, but not Emmi. This just made her want to scream, at the top of her lungs, “Why?” She didn’t want to plead, she just wanted this to be over. To be done. Instead Emmi just stood there as her console raised next to her. Something clicked inside of her, she put a hand on them and stopped them from getting up.

-V-