Abuse of process

Frozen in dock, hands locked unconsciously behind his back and fingering a horseshoe, our defendant ponders the ignominy of going down over a bruise; he’s under the cosh, in an alien land, in a courtroom shaped like a lunar module. It’s lawyers versus lawyer-slayers, black gowns swishing like stallions’ manes. It's rodents caught in the high beam, the descendant star and the errant equestrian, reluctant leads in a B movie. Plots crossed, a cowboy pilots the spaceship, an astronaut feels for his umbilical cable and finds a holster. A woman puts her feet up, exhibits her socks. Then comes this marvelous moment, the denouement: helmet in Gucci and feet shod with Prada, a rogue produces photos as glossy as newborn foals, the incontestable proof. The magistrate probes the guts in his scales, throws out the bones. White, you shake my hand with a dead carp; her face blanches, cold as cod from the freezer.

(First published in Matchbook, 5 June 2017.)