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Not guilty. Two words, pronounced clearly, almost too much to seam real, followed by the distant echoing of a gavel’s slam. You could almost hear the tiny voice crack of relief at the end of His Honor’s words, his concerned gaze looking down at the man standing at the witness stand as if he still was that young 9 year old boy, hidden beneath the reassuring shadow of his father.
The words are accompanied by an almost deafening silence, as if everyone in the gallery is holding their breath in this kind of limbo between relief and disbelief. It could almost be funny if the situation wasn’t so serious, while slowly the words start to make their way into everybody’s minds.
The unexpected burst of confettis almost sounds treathening in the unnatural quiet. There he is, the cheerful detective throwing handfuls of little pieces of colorful papers in the whole courtroom, over the defense’s bench with the two unusual looking individuals, and the prosecution’s desk, empty, terrifyingly silent but somehow it seems like the wood’s grain still retains the horrifying gut wrenching scream of the senior prosecutor who was clenching his fingers on it a few instants before the bailiffs took him. His last freezing cold stare was directed right at him, the man who was still on the stand, his sweaty palm crunching the magenta fabric on the elbow of his expensive suit. An unforgiving, terrifying stare. A stare that could kill.
He does not know how long it has been since his last breath as he lets air enter difficulty his body. He faintly hears some voices, cheers or screams of agony he cannot tell. Is he the one talking or is there someone else around? All he knows is that he is far, so far away. As he hears the noises of people getting out of their seats and the talks slowly restarting he is dissolving higher and higher, escaping through the window, until he can see the courtroom building from up there and then the city and the highways and the ocean and the galaxy.
A light pat on his shoulder that feels like he’s thunderstruck. It’s the detective gently guiding him to the defense lobby. Faintly he feels the blades of a thousand stares, none of them friendly. Each movement even small is as painful as a hammer slamming migraines into his head. With each painful beat of his heart he needs to remember he is here and somehow evolving on the creaking wooden floor. On the outside his expression is dead neutral, he can see it himself as if he were watching from the gallery.
It’s quieter now, but he’s still hearing sounds, voices, his is among them, at least he thinks so, because he can feel his vocal chords vibrating inside him, curling up against the tumultuous sound of his heart beat - boom boom boom all stretching into a continuous deafening tonality. His vision comes to him as flashes, all so blurry and surrounded by lines like a weird aura, all he can see clearly is the silhouette of the man with spiky hair, he’s looking at him, he thinks they’re talking, then the blinding light of a camera, brutal sound hauntingly similar to that of a gunshot, he is trying hard to not fall on the ground that seems to tremble more and more, the only thing that is holding him is that familiar smell, it reminds him of his childhood at school, the attorney wearing the blue suit, he’s looking at him and talking to him bringing him back like an anchor in a sea storm.
And then he’s alone again his hands trembling holding the edge of his counter, he’s in his apartment, somehow he managed to avoid the restaurant they were all supposed to be eating at, probably some half-mumbled kind of excuse, yes, now he’s alone, that pitiful excuse of a prosecutor, and no one else by his side and it’s like he already doesn’t exist, it seems like he is in his bathroom now , he has no clue what he is doing , it seams as though he is merging with the walls and the floor and the bath and the pain, he does not know anything, he does not have anyone. Not anymore. He- he… he-
A knock on the door, many knocks, getting louder and louder, then it seems it’s forced open, who, what, everything, shaky, vision, blurring, one word that he manages to regurgitate, the only string right now keeping him out of the abyss-
- Wright…