"Justice is a self-indulgent brat. She claims not to know Corruption, but they're really next-door neighbors."

"She got me out of summer school once, so she's okay."

"Ugh. Don't get me started, she's all save the animals and use paper bags. I want to shove her in a box called reality."

"I wish she would stop running for student body president. It's getting ridiculous."

"Nobody cares how many times she can argue her grade up from a C, she's still failing civics class."

"Justice is an okay student, but she doesn't know much about the real world. And her classmates are fed up with how she's treating them. Now, this is just speculation, but apparently, she got the prom queen vote recounted because of collusion."

"I heard she broke Truth's nose one time. It was pretty sick."

"My nose wouldn't stop bleeding for a week. I had to join Sadness's support group. He's so obnoxious."

"Yeah, she's okay in my book. Got me out of a bogus speeding ticket once."

"If she makes one more poster about running for student body president, I swear to Religion - okay, she's done it now! Hang on, I need to go burn a few flyers."

"She's got cute hair. Heard she sued a salon over a bad dye job once though."

"She said cheerleading was outdated and sexist. Whatever, loser."

"My crown and sash was taken away because she thought I meddled in the election. I'd get her back if I could, but she'd find some way to get me suspended again. Stupid loopholes."

"Envy stole my shoes one time. Justice got her detention. It was totally great."

"I can't hold a conversation with her. Like I get it, the ice caps are melting, and Friendship's too happy-go-lucky to realize people hate her. That doesn't mean we need to move to Antarctica or tell her the truth."

"This school was built on her. Literally, she used to live on the lot it was built on. Or so I've been told."

"Justice can go fly a kite. Well, poor kite 'cause she'd argue with it over why water isn't wet."

Whet thy whistle and cherish

life is like soft peaks

swinging from frayed ropes

dangling from hot tin roofs

tapping wild bare feet

Whet thy whistle and savor

horses trotting on old brick roads

black eyed sunflowers bending

spirits hiding in gray mist

rushing wind on blushed ears

Whet thy whistle and witness

feverish tracks of strewn rocks

fingers rustling on silken grass

fingernail moons and froggy leaps

sun dances in waving winds

Whet thy whistle and listen

warm breeze piping

wetness whispers of wind

waving palms mid azure skies

thousand of tales murmuring

WANDER AT THE EDGE OF LIFE WITH EARTH AT YOUR FEET

In you go

Stare at all the snow

Do not weep

Now’s not the time

To act like a mime

Or try to fall asleep

Heavy footsteps advance

Louder than an avalanche

You need to run

This is not a place of fun!

The creature & guard

Will hit you really hard

Watch out for the Minotaur

Not sure if it’s as old as a dinosaur

Hurry now before it’s too late

There’s no moment to waste

Save yourself & later head to Corinth

Any place far away from this labyrinth.

______________________________

Then you figure it out

You start to pout

You are the guardian of the maze

This puts you in a daze

#Labyrinth ©

(25th July, 2020. Saturday)

You didn't save them. You let them die.

The words pounded her brain with each jolt of the train, memories flashing by as relentlessly as the passing terrain.

At the last stop, she disembarked, letting her feet carry her along a fading pathway.

It ended at the river.

Just feet away from the torrent were four markers bearing rough-carved epitaphs.

She stopped before the largest, which read, “Loving husband and father.” The image of a strong jaw and impossibly tender smile was trodden over by a pale lifeless face staring up from the rocky beach.

Next, twin memorials read, “Loving daughter” and “Loving son.” Giggles and soft blond hair filled her mind only to be chased away by confused, tear-filled eyes and terrified screams amid rushing water, an overturned skiff. The sounds tormented her, etched into her very soul.

Shuddering, she turned to the final marker: “Faithful companion.” A furry brown head nudged at her memories before dissipating to join the rest. The headstones lay solemn and steadfast, the only reminder of a life gone forever.

Cold, bone-achingly weary, the sorrow of the world on her shoulders, she’d carved them herself after burying her dead family in the hard-packed earth.

Stereotypically, a princess is armed with a crown and a smile. She waves, delicately, to her subjects from a carriage pulled by four pristine white horses. Romanticized, built into the foundation of a fairytale that has little – if any – foothold in reality. Rarely is a woman’s life so carefree.

But some of our fictional heroines trade in their scepters for…blasters. Sleek space pistols that shoot red beams of light; the laser blast is as beautiful as it is deadly. A young revolutionary, justice-starved, and desperate to free the galaxy from the grip of a tyrant. Leia Organa, little more than a teenager, smuggled the plans to the Empire’s Ultimate Weapon into a dutiful little astro-droid. She survived Darth Vader’s merciless interrogation with her trademark double buns perfectly intact, and she didn’t crumple as the captive of a vile gangster.

This rebel princess watched helplessly as her home planet and everything she knew was blown to bits. Instead of sinking into despair, Leia rallied and rescued herself when Han and Luke’s plan ended with our space heroes surrounded by stormtroopers. Sure, she led them down a garbage chute – complete with a tentacled trash monster – but all’s well that ends well, right?

Beautiful, witty, and strong enough to stoke the fires of a galactic rebellion, she created a new title for herself: General Organa. Not only was she loved, but she was respected and cherished as a leader. Leia fought for peace, prosperity, and ultimately, for freedom from fear.

She organized the attack on the Death Star not once, but twice. She rescued Han Solo from carbonite, she encouraged her brother to become a Jedi, and she did it all without the pomp and circumstance of some of our more traditional Disney princesses. An unapologetic rebel and a determined leader; she did it with a scowl, a barking laugh, and a blaster at her side.

George Lucas wanted a princess, but Carrie Fisher gave us a spitfire.

May the Force be with her, always.

i don't cry until a week after the funereal.

i'm making tea. boiling the kettle. pouring water. watching the teabag drown and then- hands are shaking. boiling water scalds my skin like an angry ocean. burns. but not as much as the tears on my cheek. not as much as my heart.

i collapse in the corner. like the kitchen counters are the only things holding me togther. perhaps they are. becuase god. i miss you. i miss your very presence. this room feels empty, this house feels empty, fuck, my heart feels empty.

friends and family have been visiting all week. offering condolances and cards and soup. why does anyone think soup can fix a broken soul?

i tip all the soup down the sink. and place the cards in a black bag on the street. there are other black bags in the hallway; full of the possesions that seemed so megure before you left. i can't throw them out.

sometimes i go and sit in the hall and bury my head in the contents of those bags. they still smell like you. i can alomost pretend you are still here- till i feel the tears on my cheeks.

After six weeks of the trial, the last closing arguments were given. What a relief. I had sat in that jury box all that time. It was a comedy for me, but a tragedy for the accused.

The end of the prosecution and defense happened on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, and many had complained there was no way they could come back to this goddamned place after the holidays to deliberate. Enough was enough. No, we’ll end this tonight and get on with our lives.

How could I speak up? I wasn’t even allowed.

After a brief break, all the jurors were herded back out to the courtroom and sat down, hopefully for the last time, in the uncomfortable chairs. The judge read the 26 pages of jury instructions, and then she sequestered everyone for deliberations.

No one deliberated. That’s what I knew. Everyone asked about everyone else’s Thanksgiving plans. The menu. The visitors. The big game.

“Let’s start our holidays, shall we?” asked the foreman. “I think I speak for everyone here when I say ‘guilty.’” The silent affirmation, polite and discrete, would have been deafening.

When I heard this and I was speechless. Everyone was ready to convict in just 45 minutes, which included dinner from Subway and a cursory acceptance of the jury instructions. The judge had said just reviewing the evidence would take a week, and gave vibes that she felt it could go either way.

“Pain doctors,” Juror #4 had said with a sneer.

“Pain doctors,” agreed Juror #11, but his agreement was probably just with Juror #4′s sneer.

The rest laughed. I heard this, yet I remained silent when I did.

“Um,” Juror #7 had said, “Are we at all disturbed that the head DEA agent lied about the physical exams...saying the doctors didn’t do any..that they didn’t even have exam tables in the rooms?” Juror #9 had rifled through the exhibits and found the pictures from the raid which showed the exam tables.

“How could they do ’em with these boxes on top?” Juror # 2 had asked.

“Look closely,” said Juror #7. “Those are boxes labeled ‘DEA EVIDENCE.’”

“Oh, c’mon!” the foreman shouted. That’s what I heard. “They’re pain doctors. It was a pill mill, for Christ’s sake!”

“The charts showed the exams,” argued Juror #7.

“These are electronic medical records,” the foreman had explained. “You can just copy and paste all that stuff.”

“Um,” again interrupted Juror #7, “are we at all disturbed that the prosecutor planted evidence?”

“What? Where?” challenged the foreman.

“The letter. That letter from that patient’s mother.”

Juror #9 had fished out a hand-written letter and read, “Please stop treating my son for pain. The Lord will heal him, but instead you’re just getting him addicted. Last week he overdosed. You’re killing my son.” He then pulled the chart, comparing the date of the letter and the office visit dated the next day. “Patient reports medication is making him functional and controlling the pain. Pain scale is 3. No problems reported.” He stopped and made an expression of confusion. “What is the address of the clinic?” he asked.

Juror #12 read the address from one of the other charts.

“The zip code is wrong,” said Juror #7. “There’s no Bates stamp on this letter. They never got this letter.”

“So what?” the foreman had answered. “They’re Pill Mill doctors. The prosecutor said all we had to do was find just one—just one!—case in which we thought these so-called doctors prescribed narcotics in—let’s see—how’d he put it—in an ‘other than legitimate medical’ way.”

“Yea,” agreed Juror # 10. “What about that Green patient?”

“Yea, the Green patient,” agreed the foreman. “Remember, he said there was no way these doctors didn’t know we were lying to get drugs.”

“Yea,” Juror #10 said again, adding, “the prosecutor said that suspecting something is a lie and not trying to find out for sure is called 'deliberate ignorance.'”

“Is that a crime?” asked Juror #12.

“Wasn’t Green,” pointed out Juror #7, “one of the patients they dismissed from their practice for doctor-shopping? These guys even reported him—not to mention—about 200 others—to the DEA with the evidence of their doctor shopping.”

“Does that really matter?” asked Juror # 2, as his first volley into it.

“OK,” Juror #7 had pointed out, “you get caught and your doctor reports you to the DEA for drug diversion—with the evidence. Then the prosecutor calls you and says, ‘Hey, how’d you like to helps us out? Testify against these doctors and you get a chance to lessen what we do to you.’”

“Not to mention,” added Juror #2 with I could only imagine was an air of epiphany, “payback to the very doctors who turned ’em in.”

“In fact,” Juror #9 informed everyone after taking a moment to stack several charts in some order that he had been using, “every one of these patients had been busted.”

“And,” added Juror #7, as I heard it, “they actually admitted they were liars, by testifying they lied to the doctors to get the drugs.”

“Yea,” the foreman said, “but really! Where there’s smoke…right? All of them you can explain? I don’t think so. Remember, all we need is one. I mean, these doctors are here in trial. Something must have been going on. They wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t, right?”

“Yea,” answered Juror #12, “a lot of deliberate ignorance.”

“Certainly, there’s at least one instance here in six weeks of testimony,” agreed Juror #5, “where something fishy was going on. They probably knew.” A lot of nodding in agreement.

That’s when the room fell silent.

Silence can be heard. That’s what I heard. It killed me, but I remained silent.

“What about the prosecutor’s expert witness—the real pain doctor,” the foreman had offered.

“Dr. Whats-his-name,” Juror #8 jumped in.

“Yea,” the foreman said.

“He does the same thing, doesn’t he?” asked Juror #7. “Why isn’t he in trouble?”

“Because,” the foreman had explained, “he also sticks needles in people. He doesn’t just write prescriptions. He does blocks, too, and spinal taps—stuff like that. He doesn’t just write prescriptions.”

“But,” Juror #7 continued, “even he has a segment of his patient population where all that stuff didn’t work.”

“And?” asked the foreman.

“Well, for them, he just writes prescriptions. So how come he’s not on trial?”

“Because,” the foreman said sternly, “as I told you, he does other things, too.”

Right, I thought, the needles and stuff.

“Damn right,” someone had agreed.

“I just wonder,” Juror #7 had said to the foreman, and I pictured him whispering it for emphasis, “what’s the difference between the patients the good doctor writes prescriptions for and the ones the bad doctors write them for?”

“Because,” the foreman had answered in a mocking whisper right back, “he’s a good doctor and these guys are Pill Mill doctors.” That’s how I heard it.

“So, you’re saying Pill Mill doctors discharge over 20% of their patients with suspicious drug screens and report ’em to the DEA?”

“This one did,” said Juror #2.

“Yea,” said the foreman. “What better way for Pill Mill doctors to keep in the DEA’s good graces and keep from getting caught.”

“Listen,” Juror #9 had said, “the charge is conspiracy. We just have to all feel like they wanted to do this. We don’t have to prove they did it.”

“That’s right,” the foreman had said. “Conspiracy. Am I right, everyone?” He looked around the room.

"Conspiracy of manslaughter for the overdose? Can you conspire to commit manslaughter?" asked Juror #7. "Is that a thing?"

"I don't think that really matters," concluded the foreman.

That’s how I heard it, and still I remained silent.

“Bailiff,” he had called out the door. “Please tell the judge we’re ready with our verdict.” He had paused for one last look at everyone. “Right?” he added. No one said anything. “I don’t know about you, but after six long, boring weeks I’m ready to get this all finished. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving and I sure as hell don’t wanna have to come back here after the holidays and do this again.”

Justice in action. That’s how I heard everything. Speechless. I’ll never know the whole story, but I certainly had enough doubt to not convict. The DEA lied, the prosecutor lied, the patients lied. Everyone lied. But it didn’t really matter what I thought. I wouldn’t be saying anything. I was only an alternate juror, and I would be home for Thanksgiving no matter what happened, but I’d hear all about it.

The doctors went to prison. That’s how I heard it.

I misplayed the Caro-Kann Defense when I was nine. Father fed me only bread for three days.

Chess is everything, everything is chess. Everyone moves in patterns. A boy will never lose if he knows the patterns. A boy must only focus.

A boy faces nine pawns, a bishop, and a knight, all neatly arranged in black cloth chairs around a white table to which the judge sent us. The others all say guilty for now. There are two windows through which they uneasily glance for escape. A boy does not. A boy focuses.

“Blood is sensational. It is memorable. But when one views blood dispassionately it does not prove guilt,” I say.

The bishop holds forth with enmity not evident three hours before; his position is exposed. “Fine! Blood by itself proves nothing. But that man showed his character,” he says. “His poor girlfriend, don’t forget, found a flash drive full of violent, degrading pornography. Disgusting pornography.”

“And they fought about it,” nods pawn f2, but I’m observing pawn a2, whose eyes look down at the mention of degrading pornography.

“Many people watch many kinds of pornography,” I reply, “and your personal repugnance for it gives you no right to condemn a man. Or a woman, for that matter.” Nearly imperceptible gratitude softens the features of pawn a2. The athletic woman likes it rough.

A boy focuses.

“He punched the wall!” the bishop thunders. “She confronted him about—I’ll say it again—disgusting pornography, and he put a hole in the drywall. He’s a vicious, angry killer.”

His hold loosens with his temper. Mine remains firm and even as a tower wall. “That was the day before, and are we also to condemn anyone who has ever punched a wall?” Pawn f2 considers. “If you’re determined to lock up or execute every person who has ever accessed an adult website or hit something inanimate, then you’ll find yourself in a very lonely society.”

“Literal blood on hands.” The bishop, obviously immune to irony, pounds the table to emphasize each word: “Blood. On. Hands.”

Rook takes bishop. “You admitted not two minutes ago that blood by itself proves nothing. You have no evidence of his guilt. You have only your personal dislike and easily explained blood. He found his girlfriend’s body. He held her. But it does not follow that he made her bleed. It’s just as possible that she went out that night for some sordid Tinder hookup with the wrong man.”

“That’s uncalled for.” The knight sallies forth from the back row, and a few adoring pawns watch him gallop by. “There is no reason to slander the poor woman by saying she was cheating.”

“Supposing is not slander.”

“Yes, it is,” the knight answers. “Lay off her.”

Into the Lasker Trap. An aggressive opponent attacks a deliberately weak position. A boy takes the unsuspecting knight in four moves.

“Very well,” I say. “She met a suffering and unstable friend but misspoke and pushed him over the edge. Or she met a cousin with a dissolving marriage who came on to her, and who took her sainted rejection badly. Or she met her brother, who has sat in the front row every day of this trial with eyes so dry they must burn. Did you not notice his unweeping face?”

“You’re just confusing everyone.” True. The pawns shift in their seats and flick their eyes between us. “It had to be him. The earrings which he bought her were ripped out post-mortem. Why would a brother or a cousin do that?”

“Yes,” I say, “her diamond earrings were gone, nowhere to be found. Certainly not in the pockets of the accused. But very tempting for a random hoodlum.”

He hesitates to think, while the dizzy pawns cannot. The bishop remains out of play, and the endgame becomes inevitable.

***

Afterward, the athletic pawn told me I had done a good thing.

I replay the game in my study that evening. It amused. Perhaps next time a boy will play the white position.

By now the pawns question how reasonable their doubt was, and whether they were wrong to press the bishop and the knight into a corner. They lack conviction. They lack information.

I take up the diamond earrings from their fellow keepsakes in the drawer. Atypical and perhaps risky to play in one’s own county, but she looked fetching in the mornings with her latte.

A boy must take an unprotected queen.