Solemn eyes watched on as the Judge stepped into the churchyard and drew the iron gate closed behind him, eliciting a mournful howl as the ancient gate grated against the frost of this quiet winter morning.
The sky was muted in greyness as though a blanket had been thrown across the entire heavens, a greyness that overshadowed the village and gifted no warmth toward the huddled crowd as they silently watched the judge trudging up the dirt path toward them.
The figure walked slowly: aged and weary. His hunched figure spoke of passing season, seasons of toil and lifeless winters, seasons of wanting nothing but survival. But yet, age did not walk alone within the step of the Judge this morning; his thoughts shifted, they grew heavy and weighed down the old man with contemplation as if he were drenched by the entirety of an ocean.
Slowing his walk, the Judge looked up as he approached the square, he looked to each face gathered before him as he was filled with the thoughts of life, the wisps of existence that so often go unseen.
‘I wish to forgo the verdict of a gathered jury as it is clear to all here that Mr Tatt is guilty.’
A start rippled across the crowd as a man who held the clever eyes of a liar laughed at the judge’s bluntness.
‘I’m sorry if you find this funny Mr Tatt, but your words have already done enough damage for today. You have convinced Mr Adams, a man of limited learning and of trusting kindness, that he must invest all that he owns into a mill set for closure. In doing so availing him of his livelihood’.
‘Surely there is no grounds for a guilty verdict then? What have I done that is not outside the fair realm of business?’ Mr Tatt replied, awash with confidence and considering no other verdict than his irrefutable innocence.
‘Destroying a life but the sake of financial gain is inhumane and it is only law that prevents us from becoming so. You used your work, your practiced and studied skills, which are beyond that of Mr Adams, to render him not only homeless, but to render him indebted for a sum that he may never hope to repay.’
‘He agreed to those terms of his own free will. Any unfairness on my client was through of his own lack of understanding’
‘And yet you directed him to this very point,’ the judge spoke with a shout, a disdain so quavering within his voice that he cast his eyes to the ground so that he may continue to speak with a clear mind, ‘you call this deceit of yours legal, you call it fair. I put it to you, Mr Tatt, that upon these grounds your ex-client may be fairly allowed to apply the full intricacies of his own profession upon yourself.’
‘What and shoot my foxes for me? By that logic it would be a matter of fairness for him to shoot me, right here and now, and I was not fast enough to move then it would somehow be my fault. Your logic makes no sense.’
Only the wind dared speak in this moment as it rolled amongst the thatched roofs and swept downward, hardening the morning’s frost that lay thoughtlessly scattered upon the ground.
Closing his eyes, the judge sighed. Turning and drawing his sight back to Mr Tatt the old man addressed the young with earnest clarity.
‘I do not wish to prolong our standing out in this cold any longer, but allow me one moment of honesty,’ removing his glasses the old judge slowly exhaled and watched his breath coil into the mist of the morning’s air. Warming his hands he paused for a moment, looking down to his wrinkled palms, struck almost paper white from the tingling coldness; why does the winter leave us so bare?
‘It is my fleeting wish that one day we shall all live in a world wherein all men stand as equal, and further that we may even live without conflict while doing so. But, in so far as I believe this to be achievable? Well, here we are, standing in the very contrast of this moment.
Notwithstanding greed, there is a commonality that every person gathered here today shares, including you Mr Tatt. It is a single, indelible, truth that any living being who holds a budding thought within their skull, or cradles the beating of a heart within their chest, shall one day die. And in death all men stand equal.
Mr Adams, I’ll leave you to discern your own recompense…’
The dew had fallen early that morning leaving the fields around the town crisp with a freshness that snapped colour with stark relief against the grey sky above.
The wind, no longer steady in it’s amble, had coiled itself around the frostbitten echo of snowfall and swirled with urgency as if trapped by a looping current.
The air, near laden with rime, clung to the villagers, as if making sure that they knew this moment to be present, that they knew this day to be vivid.
A single gunshot was heard through the quiet.
That quiet, soundless, morning.
J.McCray
2020
Sunday Short Stories 