Stories
My eyes glide furiously back and forth across blurring pages as I desperately attempt to dissect and retain as much middle eastern feminist content as I possibly can in the precious few hours before class. It’s hard to do and I’m failing miserably. My mind like an insolent child refuses to stay put here in this moment and with this task. Instead, rebellious nymph as it is, hopscotches back and forth through space and time; one minute here, on the floor, and the next minute miles away in a Minneapolis courthouse, anxiously awaiting the judgments of 12 people--twelve individuals I likely will never meet.
While all this is happening in my head as a lay sprawled out on the floor, the computer where the feed will be shown sits on the far side of the room, diagonal to my place on the floor. The screen seems frozen on a single frame— an emblazoned insignia, a seal of Minnesota’s courthouse. The seal seems stuck like you might imagine a penny would be if nailed to a wall. From the computer speakers the soft, barely audible purring of suspended time wafts firmly into the room. It slowly makes its way to my spot on the floor, at the other corner reminding me that this verdict, no matter the outcome, has damning implications. My insides start to heat up and like hot water, my blood begins to bubbling up through my center. I'm nervous. I'm scared. The entire room appears now to be ensconced in a dramatically growing spherical and thin sheath of impatient waiting. With every second the bubble expands outward as it gingerly cradles my frozenness, this sense of floating, and the slow wafting through space, being held in suspended animation, as I wait.
Suddenly, as though on cue, the air inside the bubble begins to thicken. It feels pregnant, heavy, and brash. Mimicking the expansion of the bubble, it too begins to expand, until it comes to rest heavily and pointedly on my chest. Breathing is becoming difficult and labored and I feel myself gasping for air. The air inside my body begins its own fight, desperately clamoring for release through the thinnest of passages and then, POP!
It was as if a giant pin from another dimension was driving towards this bubble, propelled by the force of a thousand galaxies, penetrates the thin sheath and it all collapses. Where there was once a purring, a shuffling can now be heard. The jury is back. A man's voice, the judge I presume, shatters the noisy silence of the room, grounding its suspension. The air however is unrelenting. It is still thick and heavy, pressing its weighty hand on my chest like an anvil. Do I have the strength to go look or should I just listen? “Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury have you reached a verdict?” I hear the man's voice say. I can’t not look. This is history in the making. With a great heave, not unlike slugging a huge bag of potatoes across your back, I impel my slackened limbs upright and race to the computer. The previous noisy silence has now given way to a host of competing sounds. The construction workers outside sawing away, the incessant and rhythmic drip of a nearby faucet, the whirring of every heating and cooling contraption you could think of, they all launch into a cacophonous melody. It is so loud it swallows up the judge’s voice.
Heart beat reverberating maddeningly throughout my body. It is here. The verdict is here. Like an incantation from a sorcerer’s lips, the heavy air evaporates, my grateful chest loosens. For the first time in a long time a deluge of air, sweat, snot, and tears breech the borders of their respective receptacles on my face. Panting, chest heaving, I crumble into a blubbering heap on the floor.
