On Wednesdays, Delores,
from Under The Porch Light, has a meme which she calls
“Words for Wednesday”.
She puts up a selection
of six words which we then use in a short story, or a poem.
I’m hopeless at poetry
so I always do a story.
It’s a fun challenge…why
not join in?
This week's words are:
1. incarcerate
2. phlegm
3. damp
4. groan
5. knife
6. blessing
we also have "a glacial stillness....the sickly sun of winter"
Here is my story:
The world outside the courthouse was held in a glacial stillness, the sickly sun of winter making only feeble attempts to occasionally break through the blanket of clouds hanging low over the small town of Blissful.
The damp cold this winter had taken its toll on Judge Wilmer, at 68 he was no longer immune to the failings of the aging. The recent flu that had laid most people up in bed for a week or more, had hit him too, although his version was more of a heavy chesty cough which left him gasping.
He cleared his throat of phlegm, took another swig of cough syrup before washing his face and hands, then headed back into the courtroom to continue the hearing.
The ten minute recess was over and it was time that boy out there learned his lesson.
The handcuffed defendant stared blankly as the Judge spoke to him.
"Mark Petersen, we meet again. This makes the seventh time in the last three years, it seems that all the rehabilitation measures haven't worked.
Let's check this sheet now....three robberies, two assaults with intent, two assaults with a deadly weapon....community service, several months in the youth remand centre, a week in the psychiatric hospital.....you're on the wrong track for sure.
You're facing some serious charges this time, that shop assistant you claim you "accidentally" slashed with a knife in a "pretend" robbery was on life support at Memorial Hospital. He died last night."
Mark stared the Judge right in the eyes, not so much as a twitch revealing any thoughts or emotions he might be feeling.
Only eighteen, yet his eyes already had that dead look so common to hard-core violent criminals, killers; soulless men who'd murdered time and time again and spent many years in prison for it.
Judge Wilmer continued, "you're eighteen now son, there'll be no more easy roads after this, no six weeks community service, no more time at Franklin Remand Centre. You're to be tried as an adult, on a charge of murder. You'll be incarcerated until your trial, set for the fifteenth of July. Your lawyer here has requested bail, but with your history, I have no regrets at all in denying him."
The Judge shuffled his papers into a neat pile, banged his gavel once and asked the bailiff to remove the prisoner to the cells in the basement.
A groan of relief broke the silence in the room as Mark Petersen's mother buried her face in her hands and began to cry.
As her boy was led away, she was heard to say through her tears, "it's wrong of me to say this, he's my son after all, but this is a blessing, it really is. There's something wrong with him, it's like the devil has his soul, he was always a wild child and now he's just straight out bad. He needs to be off the streets and locked away."