I’m back in court again today, as with yesterday it takes a
few hours just to get me from my cell and into the court room. Proper procedure
must be followed. The court room is a little busier this morning, a bit noisier
than yesterday. The public gallery is full of press, it seems that yesterday’s
events have sparked some interest. I
will have to make sure that they do not leave disappointed.
The judge enters the room and as before we all rise and do
not sit until he has seated. Before the proceedings begin, he warns me sternly
that I must behave correctly and show the court the proper respect. I assure
him that I will. He again tries to convince me to accept legal counsel, I again
refuse and we get started.
We have a new prosecutor, a middle-aged woman with a sharp
face who smoothes her gown as she stands. Hopefully she has a stronger heart
than yesterday’s specimen. She starts her case by summarising my crimes,
describing the terrible things that I did on that winter morning. Some of the
jurors look a little upset by this, but she comforts them with the promise of
evidence that will prove my guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. And with that she
calls the first witness.
The first witness is one of the armed response team officers
who arrived on the scene shortly after I had murdered his colleagues. He took
the bible in his hand and swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the
truth. The prosecutor stepped up to the witness stand and asked him to confirm
his identity.
He tried to reply, he really did, but I would not let him.
Again he tried, but again his mouth would not open. From across the courtroom
we could just about hear some mumbling. It of course made no sense and it rose
in pitch as he became frantic as he tried to speak. The judge tried to help,
telling the officer, resplendent in his uniform to calm down and just reply to
the prosecutor’s questions. This time he went red in the face he tried so hard
to answer, but again I wouldn’t allow his mouth to open.
In the end they gave up and called the second witness. This
was an elderly lady who was walking with her friend before I brutally took her
life away. She looked at me with a mixture of defiance and fear. Once again the
prosecutor walked up to the witness stand and after the witness had sworn her
oath asked her to confirm her identity. In a clear voice she stated her name
was Gillian Travers and confirmed her address.
Encouraged the prosecutor asked her to describe what had
happened. Before she could speak I was inside her, together we watched the grim
scene. I put the memory on a loop and together we watched it over and over
again. At first she was silent, then she started to tremble and then she began
to weep. They were tiny little sobs, but they carried across the room. Again
and again she watched her friend being killed by me, she couldn’t see me
through her tears, but she could feel my gaze and she knew that somehow I was
inside her head.
The prosecutor tried to calm the woman, but again to no
avail. In the end she had to be lead from the room, as she was taken away and
the door closed behind her I released her from my grasp and waited for the next
witness.
The judge called a short recess and instructed the
prosecutor to check with her witnesses, to make sure they were ready to give
their evidence.
All morning they tried, but no-one would talk. They would
all identify themselves and swear the oath, but that was all they got. The
jurors and press in the public gallery grew restless, they didn’t know what
they were seeing, but they sure that this wasn’t how it was supposed to work. I
was glad when lunchtime arrived, taking such direct control of people is a lot
more difficult than my preferred method of implanting thoughts over time. I
barely tasted lunch, but I did feel somewhat restored when the afternoon
session started.
The prosocuter changed tactics in the afternoon, she was
getting nowhere with the witnesses and so she started with the physical
evidence. She showed crime scene pictures of the street where it happened.
After showing the pictures of the bodies, she showed the CCTV footage of the
attacks. The grainy video showed me, sat on the pavement dressed in rags.
Suddenly I stood up and with brutall efficiency killed three passers-by and the
two police first responders. After a short period with me just standing there
the armed response team arrived and they saw me calmly surrender before they
made the arrest.
I let her finish her little presentation, the photos only
show the aftermarth and the video isn’t clear enough to identify me from. It’s
time to get the witnesses back in here. I raise my hand like a child in class
and say that this show and tell is all very well, but it ins’t evidence of what
I may or may not have done. She knows I’m right, the witnesses need to state
what I have done, they need to point at me, show my guilt. But she’s worried,
she doesn’t know what had made them all silent that morning, but she knows it
has something to do with me. And now she worries why I want them back in the
courtroom.
The judge reluctantly agrees, the witnesses must give their
testimony. They call the armed respose officer back in. My time in his mind has
shaken something loose, he doesn’t remember all he sees, he has been coached on
what to say. This could be what I need for todays show reel.
The officer takes the stand, a little nerviously, again he
identifies himself and takes the oath. As soon as he finishes the oath I speak
again, I ask the court in general how binding
this oath really is. Would he be punished by the court for lying if he gave
evidence? My faith is not strong in the court punishing its own. With a snap of
my fingers I laugh out loud and say “I have it. If you break the oath, you die.
Simple as that, you will die in that witness box if you don’t speak the truth.”
The judge’s fury is a delight to behold. I will not threaten
witnesses in his courtroom. Calmly I reply that there is no threat, he took the
oath and if God strikes him down for breaking that oath that would hardly be my
doing.
The prosecutor and the witness, while a little nervous about
my little outburst, they know it’s all acting, there’s no way I can strike him
down dead. It’s just bluster on my part and they followed the prepared line as
I knew I would. They came to the part I had glimpsed and while it wasn’t a lie,
he didn’t know if it was or not and she knew that she’s coached him to say what
he did.
The words barely left his lips before he collapsed. One of
the jurors screamed, there was a franctic panic to reach him, but he was dead
before he hit the floor. Like yesterday they tried CPR and like yesterday it
was wasted effort. Once again the reporters scribbled excitedly into their
notebooks. I beamed a happy smile at the shocked prosecutor, “I did warn him.
You had to push him though. You made the man lie and now you’ve killed him”.
I was still smiling as the judge ordered me back to the cells.
It was Friday, I would have the weekend to recover before the next session of
Monday.
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