15th hour of disbelief

He'd made his mind up, long before a verdict was met.

Twisted counts to feed the void of "justice."

We are ushered into a room and told to wait patiently whilst strangers determine the fate of a loved one.

Intimate details are overexposed to twelve faces, seen for no more than five working days. You look over, search, desperately to feel some remorse beam off, at least one. Just one heart to feel something beyond an act of self-defence.

You avoid staring because you are also in question. Your support and love are cross-examined. Twenty-four eyes stare to check if you squirm, smile or show nothing for the one under scrutiny. I can barely see anything under a mask, but eyes never lie, apparently?

Closing speech done, the bodies shuffle their way out, but there is one that won't stop staring at you. The whole time I'd felt my right ear aflame with his look. You hope for this to be a "good" sign. But it is brought back to me, how dangerous that word is...hope. Better excuse it all the way out before it cuts your insides up, again.

I promised myself from that day on to burn hope off my tongue, never again to be repeated.

because you realise that hope is a poor ingredient for connection. it is derived from a space of lack and anything from that well always leads to a dead end.

This was my first time sat in a public gallery. I had imagined it bigger, soo much bigger.

Four rows of red to fill up the updated "safe" seating arrangements, twelve booths with purple desks, shielded with plastic covers. Upon entering, my mouth had dried, my attention was placed on sitting steady, mind rattling, trying to calm the disbelief. Straight ahead from the last row, you stand for a judge to enter. He is seated just above the ground in a red chair, but his is leather—two small screens in his view.

Although he represented a figure of esteem, it was highlighted just how small he really was. Maybe it was the room, the lighting, the seating? Or maybe it was the low hanging fruit he so desperately needed to pick at. The need for justice exposed all of his games, but for only those with eyes peeled to witness.

Soo much budget was placed on safe seating with little regard to the elephant in the room—a system in dire need of bias renovation.

You leave the room, told to wait for the next four hours. While details are being mulled over, ripped apart and your next day entirely out of your hands. The seats downstairs are green, the toilets are tiny with mirrors too high. There is little toilet paper and the bins were overflowing. You refuse to get acquainted as you hope this is the last time you see this floor. Hours move like the longest exam you've taken in your life, sat trying to piece the answers to an essay.

This time, you've missed the back page, the 30 mark question you did not prepare for: How do you design a "safe space" to zoom in to all the prejudices of a judge?

The barrister comes down to share that "a decision will be made tomorrow." The public cannot decide today. There it is again, that beam of hope wiggling its way back in. When people need time to think, we tend to assume the best.

Once again, I was wrong.

Nobody slept that night—a mixed bag of feelings. No words were exchanged all the way there. Still, a small ounce of faith lingered. Fighting to see the light, regardless of how dishevelled the evidence was.

We arrived two hours early. Whilst mum could not get her limbs to sit still, I could because I had to practice.

I opened my phone, no wifi, so I continued taking notes of the culture I was sitting in.

Before 9 am, it's you, and the cleaners that occupy the empty corridors, slowly as the sun seeps through the one glass window, the doors swing open, one by one, each get ready for the events of the day to unfold.

One judge passes another. They paused, conveniently right in my earshot;

"Did you sleep?" one said

"Yeah, I actually had an excellent sleep!" the other replied.

" I can see it in your face, transformative, really is", he responded.

The excitement was not lost on me. It was so very human to feel the restoration of a good nights sleep. To fully arrive, be ready and wide-eyed in the decision making, especially in this space. But the reality of it was that most of them lived off coffee, sugar and artificial lighting to get them through making life-defining decisions.

Another man with a wig and trousers adjusted as if he'd been dressed in the dark, waved paper around, shouting for a translator on one round, then continued three more rounds calling for his client's whereabouts. He sure looked like he needed less coffee.

The words kept jogging around on an open-loop; "There is no more that can be done for this case; it has been dragged out for soo long. Your only option is to surrender and have faith ... have faith. Keep faith. Hold on to the positives. C'mon."

You wait again. More waiting, so much waiting. But you say, "patience is a virtue." Back on the green sofas, you are now forced to be acquainted. Hours go by; stomach too churned to even look at water, let alone go for lunch. You are full from your surroundings. Every sight you wish to erase. Paint over. and over again.

The speaker interjects...

"Can court 8 make their way to the room, a verdict has been made."

ah shit, I wasn't ready. you never really are. they've actually decided. All the waiting made me want it to drag another day.

But the moment had to come.

We all gather our bearings, straighten up and make our way into the room of judgement.

The foreperson stands, lowers his mask and delivers two blows. Not the kind that knock you out entirely, but the ones that give you just enough room for wheezing...

Within minutes,

the weight of the women beside me collapsed. Tears streamed like mercury at melting point. The words "guilty" were hurled out from his mouth. I sat in the middle, frozen; still in disbelief.

Numb enough to not usher out one tear.

Cold enough to have no calm words of reassurance.

Heat only came from the rage building inside my core. I was desperate. Tried to translate my insides deep into one of them. Not one had voted not guilty. Not one?

This was a losing game from the start. Still, there was one more month before we'd be reacquainted with the walls of that court. Only this time, it was the judges turn to crown a verdict.

He had designed the counts to keep us all tied up, minds on remand.

His tricks revealed that he was truly all show and no heart.

***********************************************

The 15th hour came much sooner than expected. Time has a funny way of contracting when you least want it to.

I could not make the day, and the court was different.

Three kisses;

one on both cheeks, one on your forehead.

No hug, as I didn't want to get mascara on your shirt.

A tender moment.

"See you later; I love you," I said.

You replied, " hey, you should show me this every time!"

Focusing on my interview was hard enough, so I put my phone on aeroplane mode to stop myself from pacing and frantically checking. "He'll be home soon; just focus", is what I'd tell myself.

I was done. WhatsApp pinged. It was a long message.

15:30 pm, the judge had remarked, "this will be a quick one. I won't be long."

He had plans to arrive to that evening.

While we were all left on inhale, patiently waiting to breathe.

My eyes traced over the message. It was like Deja Vu. all reason was lost in an abyss. Mentally, I checked so far out. None of this makes any sense. What am I actually reading?!

He had decided "guilty with immediate sentencing."

I was in a panic and tried to find neutral answers that would not draw all the light out of my being. This was no easy matter.

Everywhere I looked, all I saw was you but all you saw were the walls of a prison cell.

That evening, I scrubbed everything, cleaned every corner to distract myself from the pain I was feeling. Screamed and did not care who heard. It shifted the pain, only temporarily. The tears came, and I shed enough to fill an arc or three. Regrets laced my limbs, my muscles fatigued. Exhausted. The need for despair to run with the tears was all I wished for.

There was no time for regrets; I had to show up and be strong for the people in my life. This was a new chapter we had not anticipated.

But ennui arrived the next morning, and it hugged me tight with both arms. A few hours passed before I wormed my way out of its tight grip and searched for answers, anything to make sense of this reality.

Standing in the cue, the man beside me tried to peek at the book tucked under my wing. It was bright orange, hard to miss. He looked at me, confused at my choice; I smiled, politely. The cover read 'brainwashed in peking'. Funny how intention leads you closer to what you seek. Inside was a detailed confession from a prisoner that served 3 years in mao tse-tung prison. A heavy invite.

Sitting in Costa that day, the day after the storm, the book opened, but my mind was too wide to focus.

Everything was louder, in the quietest way?

All the mundane moments seemed sacred all of a sudden. Everything was sacred. The little girl in the cue telling her dad about her hair bobbles matching her shoes, the couple in front of me clasping hands tightly together, the girl with her date.

All of it was precious. Time in my world had slowed all the way down.

The ensuing silence followed acceptance. I'd accepted this chapter, admitted that this was only the beginning.