Point the finger

On request of a friend: A passage.

You sit behind a higher chair, wearing a black shirt and slacks, tastefully creased.

The cast begins to enter, filing into this chamber of brightly lit tubelights that house noisy insects and buff ac fans overhead. A man enters, with a flashy cell phone, is remorsely large, staggeringly, stutteringly eloquent. Another enters, a mortal enemy: righteously treacherous, impeccably dressed, unfairly confident. And radiant, confiding..his wife: someone that I find fascinating. Three people I know, one of which I hate, all players in this trial in my head, witnesses and liars all...

They are pursued by two hawkfaced men dressed in black and white: both forbidding, both obnoxious, hairs dripping with oily substance...two homo reflections of the same soul, in a cosmic house of mirrors, or uncanny coincidence? impossible to say.

A steady stream of others follows, their diversity the work of a skilled casting director. They take their places. They all sit. Silent murmurs, moving slowely, ever hesitation well rehearsed. A brief but stylish corwd scene, and above it all I and my mortal enemy sit near by.

Then a pause, a silence. All eyes turn to his chair. He stands, a pharoah, an enemy. I must be patient however. To others, he is terrible almost-hero of a great story: powerful and magnificent. My temper flairs. I fight to control it. And then he is seated and it begins. Its dinner. My fists feel like the hammer of god himself. Perhaps this rage...where did I get this rage, flashes through my mind before vanishing forever...But the die has been cast. There is no going back.

It is a happy room. A gathering at a social climate. Yet none realize the villain here. I defy the nonsense, and imagine this a court. The hawkfaced men and accompanying others the courtsmen, him the accused, and I the prosecutor. My syliloquy as follows:

"He is a phony, Milord" I’d say. My remarks would reek of closure. "There can be no doubt here. No more facts exist to be found. The balancding of scales awaits. Redress for wrong is come. Tender humanity screams in fear, confronted by such a monster, and conscience weeps with rage. The law usually licks its lips at the prospect of punishing such a one, and justinc can shut its eyes today, so easy is its task."

I’d pause, my words leaping about the courtroom like shadows cast for innocense’ sake in the flickering light of some dying candle. He’d be worthy of the punishment that followed; i confident; since the villian clearly’d deserve it.