How is this even happening? How have I found myself on trial for murder?
Anyone who knows me will tell you I am not capable of murder. Yet the evidence laid out by the prosecution would suggest otherwise.
I keep my hands clasped tightly together on my lap while sitting silently in the dock waiting for the judge to enter the room. I do so partly to stop them from shaking, but also because it gives me something to focus on, as does looking straight ahead at nothing and no one in particular. I am fearful of making eye contact with anyone at this moment. I am under the microscope, my every move being watched, and it’s hard to act naturally under such intense scrutiny.
Likewise, it requires every ounce of effort on my part to hold back the words on the tip of my tongue itching to get out but constrained by the court’s strict contempt rules. Rules I am terrified of breaking, knowing the judge and jury already have the wrong impression of me. They doubtless consider me a monster, something I cannot blame them for, and so I daren’t say anything to further augment that macabre image. Equally, I am too frightened to meet the jury’s gaze, even though I so badly want to protest my innocence through earnest eyes. Make them see that I am not the monster here, but rather, the victim. I worry that they will interpret my staring as a look of menace, a warning that they had better not reach the wrong verdict if they do not wish to become victims themselves. But then again, will my failure to meet their gaze cause them to believe I have something to hide? A sign of a guilty conscience perhaps? Even though I have nothing to feel guilty about, having done nothing wrong. I should have come forward sooner, should have trusted what my gut was telling me. But I suppose I didn’t want to believe it. And by the time I had reconciled myself with the truth, it was too late.
My barrister is brilliant, but he is not a magician. There is only so much he can do in the face of insurmountable evidence planted against me. Despite me knowing the identity of the real culprit. Someone who is smart, devious and callous through and through. Someone who tricked me, tricked others, and who set me up for a fall from which I fear there’ll be no picking myself up. Someone who, right now, is sitting in this very courtroom. Taunting me with their sheer presence, ramping up my suffering and the sense of injustice that courses through my veins and fuels a rage I can only contain by clenching my hands even tighter, the bones of my knuckles jutting through my pallid skin, my nails almost drawing blood.
There’s only one more witness the defence hopes to call. One who, until now, has failed to come forward and give evidence. But who could hold the key to my salvation.
I pray to God that they come through for me. Can be made to talk, tell the truth. That they won’t let pride or anger stand in the way of doing what is right. The fact is, right now I’m in a hole so deep, that without their testimony, I fear it’s going to take a miracle from the Almighty to pull me out.