JUDGES

A story about the judges around us.

JUDGES

I was surrounded by judges, but did not hate them. Every day I found one more verdict hanging on my door. I folded it up diligently and put it in my jacket's pocket. Towards evening I came home from work and read with relief. I underlined the important passages, drank champagne, and then I fell asleep relieved because I knew I was innocent until proven guilty. In the next morning I expected the next verdict. I did not care that it would be there hanging on my door, but I was curious about those who issued them. However, even that stopped bothering me those days. I felt how brutish I became as time went by. I had used to have a battlefield once, and every day spent there had made me stronger, but all that had been taken away from me, and what I received, then, were only verdicts.

 

I was obsessed by them every day and expected the next one impatiently urged by some masochistic curiosity. There are many such people like me. Even your neighbor is such person, just you do not know about it. We are very good in saving other people. This make us feel useful, because we can't help ourselves anymore. The things that make me sad make me happy as well. 

 

How simple this is, isn't it?

 

Some time ago I decided to buy a weeping willow, which I called Iva. But dear, it did not stop crying. I would have got drawn, so, I got rid of it. Then, I took the crucial decision to move to the country. This would make those who daily issued my verdicts forget about me, I guessed.

 

The place I found of all deserted villages, empty houses, and streets, was like no other. It was one of a kind, indeed. It was at the end of the village, awkwardly situated near a country road, leading to the nothingness and the railway line. I bought it and moved in. It was a beautiful morning when I landed there.

 

Why did I land?

 

There was no railway station in the village and the trains slowed down so that people like me could get on the train, or "land". A malicious, toothless old woman explained me that the village did not need a railway station, because no one ever neither came around, nor left this village, and when I asked her what was I, then, she replied: "a madman!".

 

I had several belongings that I put in order in the house and before I knew where I was some years had passed. Every day the train noisily came in my living room and went out insolently through the bedroom. The walls became cracked as time went by. Every train that came and went left visible furrows on them. I remembered the first one, which I proudly painted in scarlet. It did not bother me anymore. They were so many, that I hardly believed in the existence of such a palette. The people living near my house always left trails - bottles, papers, food, and etc. Things were thrown away at my door-sill from their windows. I had received verdicts before, and now I had to sweep up, scavenging the rubbish of those who issued those verdicts. I had turned into a totter.

One ghostly day a passing train woke me up. I went out to breathe some fresh air.

 

A car without a driver stood in front of a useless barrier outside. It made me laugh. What was the point of pulling down a barrier before a car that had no driver. And what if it had a driver since the barrier was pulled down. While I was laughing, another train passed and my house collapsed. 

 

Then, I decided to steal the car, secretly hoping that the barrier would be pulled up one day.

Reviews

[A. Amos]

This was entertaining tale and I enjoy your story telling:)

[Olesya]

Thanks A. Amos!

[A. Amos]

You're most welcome