SILENCE

SILENCE

I remember that before, I did have a scotch in my hand. And it was damn good Scotch too-- De Marseilles 12 years old. I wager I had no more than two drinks, but I suppose I don’t have any credibility on that. Although I really shouldn’t make light of whatever happened, I would like to say for sure that the experience filled me with optimism, despite everything.

I’m still not sure how I got there, but I remember finding myself standing in the middle of a black desert-like flat landmass. There was no dirt, and I could feel that I was standing on solid ground. There was no light source to speak of, but it felt as though the ground was slightly luminous itself, or reflecting light off some unknown, unseen light source. The sky was pitch black, no stars, no moonlight, nothing but blackness and there was no horizon that I could see.

I assumed immediately that it was a dream. I thought so because despite being surrounded infinite darkness I felt comfortable, jovial even. After making a few jokes to myself about the crazy dream I was having, I was approached by an old man. He had a stern look on his face, and he was as tall as I was. He was not frail or weak in anyway. However the wrinkles on his square, bold face suggested that he was indeed quite old. Strangely enough, I did not recognize him.

He approached me wearing a black cloak. I asked him who he was. “It does not matter who I am, really, but only what you are,” he said to me. “What is this? I asked, “Some kind of a crazy mind warp thing? Where am I?”

“We are inside your mind. You are dreaming. You fell asleep and now you are here until you wake up,” he replied. “Well then,” said I. “I demand to know who you are and what you’re doing here, rather what we are doing here.”

He simply ignored me and walked away slowly. He extended his hand outward as if to retrieve something from an unseen bookshelf. He paused and still with his back to me, he said, “You were very rude to the waiter the other day, weren’t you Mr. Andrews?” “I was on the phone with my publisher, and I had a lot on my mind,” I said as I tried to defend myself. “Yes,” he replied with a steep sarcasm, “You’re a big, important author of teenage novels, and he’s just a waiter. Besides you have blatant disregard for any human, why should a waiter get special treatment from you?”

I felt that his tone was a little harsh, but I did not protest. He was right after all, I was quite rude and I shouldn’t have been, but I did not say that to the old man, but I merely kept quiet as he continued to speak, “You also haven’t been punctual for a very long time. And you say that it is a part of your artistic quirkiness. But Mr. Andrews, we both know it is because you do not like waking up early. It has nothing to do with you being an author, although you say that out aloud to everyone whether or not they ask you. Does that not bother you? Don’t you feel that it is very narcissistic?”

I tried to interrupt him, but only after he was done could I speak “Hey now, I do have a problem with sleeping early and besides I get a lot of my work done at night. I still have written for ten hours at a stretch, and I haven’t been too late for my deadlines and updates. My publishers seem happy enough. Are you trying to say I’m not dedicated to my work?”

“Don’t try to twist my words” he said sternly. “That will do you no good here. It may work on the girls that you flirt with and some of the people you encounter, but in here, you will answer straight and you will answer truthfully.”

“In here?” I laughed, “This is supposed to be my mind, isn’t it? It’s my creation, my world. Besides, why do I have to answer to you? What am I on--” He looked back at me furiously, and I struggled to get the last word out “—Trial…”

He stared me dead in the eye, clearly very unhappy with me. I felt a chill up my spine, like the chill you get as a boy in the headmaster’s office before he speaks. Suddenly, out from the ground a giant desk sprang up with the Old Man rising behind it. It was easily twenty feet tall. From each side two smaller desks rose, with two other people I did not recognize although they seemed to be identical twins.

“Okay, um…” I stuttered as I spoke, as the old man stared at me angrily, “What is this? Seriously, who are you and why am I here?”

“You Mr. Andrews are on trial. We are the jurors and the judges and we shall decide your fate. If you are found unworthy, we will create a cerebral aneurysm, and it shall kill you. We are not an external body Mr. Andrews. We are you as much as you are yourself. We are in a dream that you are having and you cannot escape it until you awake. And thanks to your insistence on drinking every night before you sleep, we shall be here long enough to determine your sentence.”

At this point, I was getting a little angry. On one hand, they say that this is just a dream, on the other they say that they are putting me on trial and may kill me. This did not make any sense at the time, and I believed that their threats were empty. I didn’t think it was possible for someone’s subconscious to spontaneously create an aneurysm dangerous enough to kill oneself. But that was before I tried waking up.

At first, I couldn’t do it. I wished myself as hard as I could to simply wake up, open my eyes and get up, but it proved much harder than I thought. The judges kept telling me that it was useless, but after much effort, I finally found myself waking up and getting up off the bed. My bedroom was dark, and I could barely see anything. I reached for the light switch and found nothing. I looked for it again, but again I found just emptiness where the switches were supposed to be. As my vision cleared, I realized that this was not my room, and it was simply my bed in a small dark and empty place. The old man appeared beside me. “Are you done?” he asked. I looked at him, with my jaw dropped, and with fear and confusion on my face.

I found myself once again in front of the giant desks, with the Judges staring down at me. A small, square piece of land erupted from the ground. It was only a little high and I was asked to stand on it and I did as I was told.

I realized two things at that point: First that I had only dreamt of waking up but hadn’t actually done so, and secondly, this was serious. Unless I woke up, I would be trapped here. I hoped they were lying about the aneurysm thing, for on the square block I felt a very real fear. I knew it was irrational and I knew I was dreaming, but I was still very afraid of the situation.

I calmed my nerves after a while, and then the Old man opened up a large book, some sort of a ledger and said, “Let us begin.”

“When you were in the second grade you had a series of astronomy lectures. You were quite intrigued but you struggled, and you failed the test. Since then you have disliked anything related to astronomy, even today you are often annoyed and bored by it. You promised yourself that you would study it and get better at it but you never did.”

I interrupted them as fast as I could, “Wait a minute, I don’t hate astronomy. I’m just indifferent to it. I don’t care what NASA’s doing or anything and I was in the second grade. You’re going to sentence me to death for something I did or didn’t do as a child?”

“No,” he replied. “I’m merely trying to establish a point.”

“Eighth grade, you had a History class that while you enjoyed, you got so over confident that you did not study, and you failed it miserably. Then we get to your greatest mistake: in college, when the producer from R.T. Music came, you had a performance for which you did not practice enough, but your best friend did. You could’ve been selected, and you know you would’ve had a very successful musical career, but you let it go simply because you couldn’t get past your ego. What’s more is that your best friend did impress the producer, and is now rolling in millions, instead of you.”

“Do you see my point, Mr. Andrews? Your laziness and over confidence has cost you your life, and despite clearly having an aptitude and a passion for music, you have never played any of the three instruments you know so well and you resent your friend for becoming more successful than you did. What do you have to say for that?”

I was getting a little annoyed by his tone. He put it as though I was nothing but a failure. Having spent so long knocking on the doors of every publisher I could find, and becoming successful enough as a writer that not only did they make a movie out of my book but gave me a lot of creative control over it. My conscience it seemed was at war with my ego, something I didn’t think possible.

“Now look here,” I said as boldly as possible, “I may not be a successful musician, but I am very successful. Two million copies of my books have been sold. The first one has been made into a successful movie and the second one has been green lit. I have a million dollars from my books. True they aren’t Shakespeare, but it still got some positive reviews, didn’t it? You sit there questioning my work, my life in my dream and completely ignore any of my good points and want to put me to death for some measly little contest that happened so long ago. What gives you the right to—‘

“SILENCE!” the old man screamed. His voice boomed and echoed throughout the land. I think I heard actual thunder when he said that and I realized that I might’ve said a little much. “You are at fault here Mr. Andrews. You are responsible for you ending up in a terrible one-bedroom apartment, despite having all your success. First off, you resent him, and you hate him and you resent your Guitar and Piano. Secondly, you spend your life blaming your ex-wife for not letting you pursue your music career when both of you knew there was no future since you yourself had shunned any opportunity that you had. And third and most disgustingly, you take pride in your literary success and you are proud of the money you have made, but you are completely unsatisfied with the content of your books and you do not have to guts to write what you want, isn’t that so?”

“How dare you call yourself an artist when you write only what you think will sell!” continued the Judge. “You simply write out your twisted fantasies by making yourself the Villain, and you call it a story!”

“I couldn’t write what I want” I said, trying to be firm. “I want to write about the political and military conflicts between a Neitzchean Dictatorship which valued logic and reason over philosophical and artistic pursuits and a Philosophical and Religious Utilitarian Republic which had great cultural accomplishments, but I don’t have the philosophical or psychological knowledge and skill to do justice to these concepts. Besides, these would be talkative and rather boring. People wouldn’t buy them and I wouldn’t be as successful today. I will write it when I am popular enough that my name alone sells books. Once I have studied these concepts in detail I have a story about a man torn between these two States that I will write properly when I can. Until then however, I’ll have to do with teenage romance novels.”

He sighed, “If only that was the extent of it.”

“Do you remember your review of “Kindred of the Oceans”, by your so called ‘rival’ David Murdoch? You called him a sellout, and you called him a hack when you knew those things applied to you more than him. It was his first book and it ruined his career. And the worst part is: he wasn’t really a rival anyway. Yours was a completely different audience and yet you didn’t want him to succeed.”

“You were scared of him, and you were scared of people saying he was the artist whilst you were the sellout. You manipulated him and you used his weakness and destroyed him because you were insecure. You disgust me, Mr. Andrews. I hope we are clear about that.”

“There are reasons to why we are considering sentencing you to death, and we will provide and prove those reasons during these proceedings.”

Once again I tried to get a word in. I couldn’t believe this was happening and I did not want to go through with it. “I know I’m not perfect, but who is? These things happened a long time ago. And Murdoch is doing fine, he’s happy with his family as he should’ve been, and he wouldn’t if it wasn’t for me. Murdoch’s book was genuinely terrible-it was clichéd, boring and didn’t have a good plot. I might’ve overdone it in the review, but I don’t think it had anything to do with my books...” I paused for a moment because as I said that, I felt myself exhausted. I don’t know if it was the Judges who were making me feel that or was it myself. But I actually felt a weight on me. Why was I denying what the Judges had said, when I knew that they were right?

“Yes I did it because of insecurity. But if I hadn’t my books probably wouldn’t be as popular and Murdoch would be in my place with the movie deal. I didn’t use his weakness to destroy him, I-I simply said that all this would not be best for his daughter and I was right. Besides I spoke with him a while ago and he said that he had a job, he got to spend time with his daughter and everything seems to have worked itself out.”

I hesitated a little when I was saying that. I didn’t know for sure if he was doing alright, and I knew I was weaving my own words very carefully, because I didn’t want to admit yet that I was the reason for Murdoch’s failure, but I knew I was.

“Besides I’ve dealt with this in the past. Why do I have to answer for it again to ‘myself’ when I know what I did made me the man I am today? I know what I did was wrong, so again, why am I here?” I asked, as I calmed myself a bit.

The Old Man replied, “If his book was terrible why did you feel threatened by him? Do not deny that you were scared of him. In here Mr. Andrews, you cannot lie even to yourself. You have wronged so many people, and you have made so many mistakes and in here, there is nobody that doesn’t know exactly what you did and why you did it.”

“You did what you did and knew it was wrong. And you drink to try and forget. You hypocritically wish you hadn’t done those things and despite all your success you still aren’t satisfied.”

Before the Old Man could continue however, one of his subordinates spoke up to him, “My lord, perhaps we could avoid delays if the accused better understood the situation. If he accepts his situation and is less hostile to this trial, maybe things might go more smoothly, sir?”

“Very well,” the Old Man said in agreement. He stood up behind the desk. Clearly there was a landing of some sort behind it. The desk split in two to reveal a staircase, which then quickly extended down to the ground, and the Judge descended slowly down to the floor.

“I do understand your confusion, Mr. Andrews whether you believe that or not. But I don’t care whether or not you understand what we are, and why are we doing this. You need to answer for all you have done and that is exactly what is going on here. True, you don’t need to answer it to any authority of anybody else, but you need to answer for these things to yourself, and that is what we are, manifestations of your frustrations and anger with yourself.”

“Imagine you are very sleepy in your warm, comfortable bed, so much that you simply cannot get up. And now imagine that in that state you begin talking to yourself and you began to ask exactly why you did some of the things you did. Of course, you cannot lie and neither can you avoid it, because you do not have the strength to get up off the bed and get away. This is that, but many times more intense. And here, if we are not convinced, we will kill you.”

As he climbed back onto the wooden staircase that spawned out from the desk, I noticed that the Judges and the desk too were illuminated by a light source I had not seen yet. And though we were surrounded by darkness on all sides, the trial area was felt strangely well lit.

“We are not simply your conscience. We are your regrets, your guilt, your frustrations, your buried feelings, your suppressed agony, your repressed anger, your ignored madness and your own heart coming out for revenge, on you.” He said that as he climbed back on staircase and stood on the fourth step from the ground. Like an escalator it retracted back into the desk which then closed automatically. He sat down behind the desk, with a satisfied look on his face. His companion’s suggestion proved right. I began to appreciate the gravity of the situation and then, I got a good idea what they were going to ask. All that I had chosen to forget over the years would come back to haunt me.

I actually felt relieved that I would get some sort of comeuppance or at least some closure on so many things. I knew what this trial would entail now, and so did they. The rest of the proceedings were surely going to continue without delay.

“Now, Mr. Andrews I’d like to start with your Ex-Wife. You were not a writer before you met her. You were working toward a political science degree and were well on your way to becoming a journalist. You won her over with your musical talents and at the tender age of twenty-two, the two of you were married. Why?”

I didn’t answer immediately as those days quickly came rushing back to me. There was a light smile on my face as I pictured her as she was when we were dating. So full of life, so bold, so much fun. “I did not win here over,” I announced to the court, “She won me over the moment I laid eyes on her. Her eyes were the most beautiful I had ever seen and despite having previous experience with women she had a hold on me from the moment we met. She was fun, exciting, brilliant, beautiful, magnificent, full of life, and so much more than I could ever be. She could’ve had any man she wanted and yet she chose me.”

“Mr. Andrews,” said one of the Judge’s assistants, “do you honestly still believe she was as wonderful as you just described her, and do you still think she could’ve had any man she wanted?”

I hesitated to answer. He was right. Looking back at it she did not in fact have all those wonderful qualities. I have said this to myself so many times in the past, but this was the first time I believed it. “No I don’t. I don’t think she was that amazing. And I admit, she did have a hold over me. And that is what I hate about myself. She was manipulative, emotionally abusive, cold and callous and I don’t think she loved me. But I loved her. In the five years we were married I grew a lot as a person, and she was a terrible wife, but sometimes I still think about her and some of the better times we had. She wasn’t the greatest wife in the world, no. But she was mine for as long as she was.”

“Is there anything else, anything at all that you would like to say about her?” asked the old man. There was more to say about her, but I didn’t want to. The Old Man looked at me patiently, as if awaiting me to say something, but I kept quiet. Then he spoke, “Mr. Andrews while it is true that you loved her and that is something possibly noble, she took more from you than material wealth, which she did much. She took from you your innocence, as you say, which is true but it is not the whole story.”

“Her influence on you was far reaching. You wouldn’t weasel out of work or cheat on things before you met her, at least not to the extent that you did. In one case I have here, there was a story that colleague of yours was meant to cover. You were also watching the story unfold yourself, so much as to go to where it was happening yourself, even though you did not have enough time. You did this on the suggestion of your wife, of course. You didn’t want to do it, and at the time you didn’t need to do it. But you did. The problem here, Mr. Andrews is that not only did you not need to do it, you submitted your article before the man who was assigned to do so, and you implied that he didn’t do it properly and in doing so, you took all the credit yourself. You stabbed him in the back for a measly story about infected puppies.”

“So clearly the influence she had on you was incredibly potent. She dictated your actions more than you did. And you say this is because you loved her. But I ask you Mr. Andrews, does that justify anything? Does love not only make one blind, but incapable of thinking on one’s own? As I said before, it is possibly noble, but it has proven to be quite detrimental.”

I asked him how this was really detrimental to me, since the article in question got fairly popular and my Boss at the time appreciated that greatly. The reason I had gone after that story, with permission of my colleague, was that it was while menial, it was a Human Interest story. “Sad puppies was something everybody would be concerned about. So I leapt at it like a hungry tiger. And it paid off. So I still don’t know whether that was such a bad thing to do.”

“Your greed has cost you more than you realize, Mr. Andrews” said the judge, obviously a little frustrated by my remarks. “When people realized what you had done in the office they realized that you were not to be trusted. This is why you fell out of favor with a lot of them. You could’ve had a lot more opportunities, had you let that one go. But you chose the quickest path. And you simply ignored the cost of it all, simply to satisfy your own manipulative voice.”

“Who then left you; she left you for no reason and took so much from you in alimony- as punishment for five years of caring for her and loving her.”

I did not have an answer for that. He had me. I had blamed myself for not being good enough for her. “I would like to say something in her defense, your honor” I spoke. At the time I didn’t know what I could say, just that I had to say something. I paused and hesitated at first, but then the words flowed through me as if I had rehearsed them a thousand times. “She may have been a terrible wife but if she hadn’t pushed me, I would never have written the book that made me so successful. I would never have had the ambition and hunger to become what I am today. Yes she changed me, she made me a monster. But that monster is responsible for my success. She made me as manipulative and cunning as her and given my success, I thank her for it.”

“Duly Noted” said the Judge. He looked at me as if he wanted me to say what effect she actually had on me. But I had more pressing matters to think of. I knew what where he was going with his questions. I knew that he would soon ask me about Bob Hogan, and so many others depending on how long this trial would last. Like a man waiting for the orders for the firing squad, I waited. I waited for him to speak, not saying anything first.

“Mr. Andrews,” said the Judge. “I would like to now talk about Bob Hogan. What I have here, is that for a very long time you manipulated and emotionally abused your best friend, Mr. Hogan ever since you found out that he worked for a prominent movie studio. Bob respected you, admired you and even looked up to you and you emotionally abused him until you got what you wanted, after which, you abandoned him.”

“And what you did with Hogan is but one example-one instance of your wrongdoings. As are the many others we have explored today. They are simply to mark the extent of your mistakes, some of them are small and some as grave as this, but you must realize it is not just these few instances, Mr. Andrews. It is an entire ledger’s worth.”

“So, first I’d like you to tell me simply, why you abandoned him. I want you to explain why you suddenly stopped talking to him.”

“I don’t suppose I can say the same thing in this court as I’ve said to all the other people, can I?” I said. The Judge simply shook his head. He was trying to corner me, and he was trying to make me accept that I deserved death. But I had a plan about this.

“Bob and I could never get along well. I needed him to get to his sister, who was a PA on a major film production. So even if our sense of humor never matched, I was as good a friend to him as I could be. I was there when his accident happened, and I was there when his girlfriend left him. I was a good friend for two years, but then I felt that there was no was no point pretending that he and I got along, so I let him go. I thought I was being dishonest to him, and I didn’t really care much about his interests, which is why I didn’t want to indulge him anymore. I felt that he was too dependent on me. I know abandoning him was wrong, but I don’t think it would’ve been right of me to keep using him, and I’m sorry I did.”

The Judge stared at me and didn’t speak. Was he finally seeing my point of view? Would he now be less hostile towards me? His silence was getting discomforting. He checked his ledger once more, as if trying to find something to say. I thought my plan worked. I made myself look good and I justified myself well.

“I understand,” said the Judge. “I admire that you admit it and that you are now willing to accept that you have done wrong and you have done horrible things in your life. But that doesn’t negate them, does it? You apologize and you are remorseful of your actions but actions have consequences, Mr. Andrews. It is not simply irresponsible to be unaware and ignorant of these consequences, it is also malicious to do so. It’s very wrong to do so, Mr. Andrews. Consider the effects that you observed on Mr. Hogan caused by your systematic destruction of his confidence for two years, and don’t deny that you didn’t know what you were doing.”

“Do you remember the party, at the Rutherford, where Bob had a mishap and ruined his best tuxedo? Do you remember how devastated he was because of it? That was because of you. By that time you had put so much pressure on him that he had lost his nerve, and his public confidence and so even that one little thing, had him shaking after until you calmed him down. Another instance where he insisted you comment on a new suit he bought. The reason for that of course, is that he needed your validation for everything.”

“He wasn’t like this when he first met you. He used to be kind, and calm. He used to be even energetic at times. But you often used to insult him. Not much, just a little. Just enough lessen his confidence a tad. Sometimes you even went so far as to humiliate him, but again not much-just enough to make him feel a slight twinge. This accumulated to him taking care of what he said in public, always being conscious of how he looks, how he talks, everything, because of you.

“Mr. Andrews because of your constant belittling of him, he lost his confidence and became timid and unsocial by the end.”

“Why would you do that? How could you be so terrible?”

I remembered thinking about these things myself when I was friends with Bob. I remember observing a change in him, but I didn’t care. I was cornered here and I didn’t know what to say, but so as to not look even guiltier I began to speak whatever came to my mind. Unfortunately, what came to me was the truth.

“I needed his sister. When I found out that he had a sister who could get me a movie deal, I leapt at the opportunity. Only for him to make his sister help me, I needed him to trust me. I needed him to want to help me. Since I had nothing to offer him but my friendship, I did just that. I made friends with and talked to him always and initially I flattered him, but I saw that he still wasn’t quite ready to cooperate. So I got frustrated, and in my frustration I started to make fun of him and insult him. Immediately I saw a small change, and saw that he was just slightly more compliant and just started to listen to me and respect me a little. So I used that to my advantage. Six months after I had met him, he introduced me to his sister and I talked to her, flirted with her, did whatever I needed to make friends with her and went about pitching my story to a lot of people and because of that, I finally got a movie deal. Of course that movie got cancelled and then she moved to another country, but before doing so, she helped me a lot.”

“Is that why you abandoned your friendship with Hogan?” asked the Judge. I had no answer, except “Yes, but it wasn’t the only reason. It’s not like I hadn’t cared for him. I may have mistreated him from time to time, but I was still his friend, real or not.”

“No Mr. Andrews,” replied the Judge. “You did not simply mistreat him from time to time, you ruined his life. You made him hate himself. You wanted to control him and so while it wasn’t your intention, you ended up damaging him irrevocably. Of course it may seem insignificant to you, but that is the problem Mr. Andrews. You think he’ll recover and you underestimate the effect you had on him, because you never did think of him as a human. You thought of him as a slave, and a tool, and that is how you treated him.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know why I treated him like I did. I admit it wasn’t right, but what can I do about it? I have no way of contacting him and besides he might’ve moved on. He wouldn’t forgive me for it anyway, so there’s no point in making him even more miserable, is there? I’m sorry. What else do you want me to say?”

“You seem to be panicking, Mr. Andrews” said one of the assistants. “Please relax, so we can get this over with as quickly as possible. Now, I don’t think you realize this that while you have admitted that you were emotionally abusive to Mr. Hogan, the reason we put you on trial is not simply because of that. It is not just Bob Hogan, or David Murdoch or someone that you have mistreated, humiliated and abused for your own petty ambitions, the list is very long. There are so many people that treated you nicely, yet you were always dismissive of them. Once you got your movie and your fame, you got worse. You have mistreated, used and cheated used so many people over the years that I doubt you can even count; all for your petty greed and insecurity. You might say that this is part of human nature, but does that justify what you have done? Does that clear you of any blame on the emotional wounds you have inflicted on so many people? We have only considered three, and that is enough to have you sweating. Imagine and realize the true weight of your sins, Mr. Andrews. Understand who and what you really are-A monster.”

“A MONSTER?” I screamed. I was losing it. I was finally getting angry at them pointing fingers at me all the time, for trivial things, especially when I too have been the victim of “emotional abuse” so many times. I too have seen failure and rejection and humiliation all my life from so many people, and I would not have it from some silly dream!

“Am I monster for acting the same way anyone else would in my situation? I have money, a nice car, and so much than my family or my friends ever had. I made millions because of what I did. People who called me a failure would take ten years to make as much as I did in six months! You call me a monster, when I was simply doing the same thing people have always done to me. Yes, I was using people, but I sacrificed more for Hogan and so many others than anyone else would have. I was there for them when no one else was, and to ask them to repay me for that is not too much.”

“You are just like her. She abused me constantly, she hurt me constantly, and then she took everything. She took my life, my heart and she left me devastated. People have hurt me throughout my entire life, and-”

“So you do blame your wife for everything?” interrupted the assistant. I immediately stopped talking. This had me taken aback a little and I didn’t understand what he had just asked me. “W-What?” I asked, completely confused. “You think all of it was your wife’s fault. You are this way because she made you this way, and so you think that clears you. That’s quite cowardly, even for you Mr. Andrews.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. With a sigh, he pointed out to me what I had said earlier; that she made me into this Monster. I had no words to defend against this. It had caught me off guard. That is why they had let that statement go, while scrutinizing every other sentence I said. They were cunning, and they wanted to trap me and I fell right into it.

“Mr. Andrews,” said the assistant. “You are responsible for your own choices. It is true that, as we have established earlier, her influence on you was lasting, but you still made those choices constantly. She left you a long time ago, and yet you have still been making those choices and doing these things for so long. You didn’t stop. It doesn’t matter even if she had a mental hold on you, because after a while, you’re still the one doing the things you do.”

“So what if I did?” I asked, once again losing my patience and resolve. I knew I shouldn’t have but by now I didn’t think it would matter. “I don’t think you understand the real impact of what I’ve done. I keep telling you, I have a nice car, a fairly nice house, and money and fame because of what I did. It’s a small price to pay for what I have achieved.”

“Oh no, Mr. Andrews” said the Judge, as if a shepherd talking to a lost sheep, “It is you who does not understand the gravity of the situation. You have often wondered why people don’t like you, why they don’t talk to you as nicely as you’d like. Don’t you think they know what you really are? Don’t you think they are simply using you, as you have once used them?”

“There are so many people that don’t see eye to eye with you, and you know it is because they are, or know someone, that you have taken advantage of. That is why people are often rude, and critical of you. That is why people often don’t pay attention to you, and so you are lonely. You have your friends but you know they wouldn’t turn their backs on you for a second. That is how much they distrust you.”

These words pierced my like a cold metal spike straight through, and death and darkness spread into me. That was the reason that despite making money, I had not earned respect and it was eating me from the inside for so very long. In an instant, all the insults, the jokes at my expense, the ignorance of so many people flooded into my memory. The negative reviews, the lack of respect in public, everything bore down on me. And I knew I was the one responsible for it. I was the one to blame. I was rich, but no one cared. I always thought that I wasn’t rich enough, and while that was true, people didn’t care about how much wealth I had, because it was my wealth, and not theirs. So many people I have met, and so very, very few of them really have appreciated what I’ve done. They are envious or they are indifferent but whatever be the case, they know I’m a terrible person to be around, and they don’t care about me.

I had lost so many friends and I simply didn’t care. I just wanted to be… successful. I thought that with money, the friends would come and in a way they did. I was indeed successful, but nobody cared.

This was why I had started drinking so heavily. This was why I had chosen this little remote one bedroom house away from people. My sins were as clear as the skin on my head to everyone, and I always ask myself if my friends do really care about me, and I have no answer.

I looked up at the Judges, they didn’t seem as alien as they had seemed before. The look of disappointment and disapproval on their face was not as strange and confusing to me as when we had begun. For their expression, and their disgust for me, was my own disgust for myself. I was responsible for the hatred I had endured over the years.

I remember when my books first took off; one year after my wife had left me. People from my job did not congratulate me heartily, neither did many of my friends, but I didn’t care. Though I wasn’t a great celebrity, I was still now considered a public figure, someone that people knew, someone that was at least mentioned once or twice on television.

I have used a precise amount of flattery, flirtation and flog, to control the people around me. That is why, when my usefulness to them is exhausted, they discard me as I discard them. I don’t have real friends, simply a list of useful people that I interact with.

My descent into madness was interrupted by the Judge as he called out my name. “Mr. Andrews, we are not quite finished. There is still another matter we have to address. We are not done with you yet, Mr. Andrews, for we you have yet to justify your behavior today.”

‘No!’ I thought to myself. I was already having a mental breakdown, and while I had staved off depression with mild alcoholism, I was not ready yet to face this one mistake of mine. I knew what he was going to say and I did not need to hear it.

“Why did you leave her?” asked the Judge-a simple enough question, but it rung deafeningly loud. To this I didn’t have an answer. She was an ex-editor I had worked with and we had shared a professional relationship once, but we continued to be friends with each other anyway. Or rather, she permitted me to hang out with her on some weekends. She worked with me on my second book, which was a resounding success like the first one, thanks to her. She also helped me convince the studio for a second movie, which they green lit because not only did the first movie succeed, but the second looked even more promising to them.

She was one of the few people that really understood me. She didn’t care that I was a terrible human being. She knew me, and she knew that what I did was out of necessity. Often, in fact, I sat down with her and we made cunning strategies to approach and work on people that I knew could help me get the movie made. It was sinister, and a tad romantic, in such a way that I cannot express. She was the most wonderful woman I had ever known. And I was madly in love with her.

“Why are you silent, Mr. Andrews? Answer me, why did you leave her tonight?”

“I…” I hesitated to speak. I was completely exhausted with this. I didn’t want to answer, I didn’t want to continue. I couldn’t do this anymore, but I spoke. “I… we were supposed to go for her birthday, to a nice restaurant. It was supposed to be me, her and a couple of her friends-some people I barely knew. I went to her house, with roses in hand, and then she asked me to come in. She was in her room and she was almost ready. When I went inside and saw her, putting on her favorite ear-rings, I was completely stunned. She was wearing a red silken gown that flowed over her beautiful body. Her hair was tied back with a jewel encrusted buckle. Her lips, as red as the roses I had bought for her, soft and beautiful. The mascara under her eyes made them pop out like diamonds. I looked into them, and was completely overcome by them. My jaw was open, the roses held loosely in my hand, and I was looking like a catatonic idiot. Involuntarily, I took one of the roses and placed it in her hair. They matched the dress perfectly and it was a vision of beauty like no other on Earth.”

“At that moment, I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t control myself anymore. She and I were friends, and she would never see me as anything more. I wanted to tell her how I feel. I wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked. I wanted her to be mine. I couldn’t bear the thought that she didn’t see me the same way. I couldn’t bear the thought of being so near to her, yet so very far.”

“So I took my chance to run. I lied to her and said that my friend had had an accident, so I had to go help him. I don’t know if she could tell that I was lying, but I did know that if I hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have been able to control myself anymore, and I’d blurt out something that would ruin our friendship forever. Our relationship lived to die another day.”

“I love her more than I have ever loved anyone, but we cannot be together for so many reasons. Hiding behind this mask of friendship is the only way I get to see her, and if I only get to see her face smiling at me then I am content. I don’t want to lose that as well.”

“You are a coward, Mr. Andrews” said the Judge coldly. “You are a lazy coward and have been a terrible Human Being. You couldn't be confident when you needed to be, when it mattered! You say you did it for success. I have only one question to ask: Was it worth it?”

Looking back at my life, and looking back at all that he had brought in front of me: the way I treated people, the things I didn’t do, the terrible things I did do and how much I have lost because of it, I did not have an answer. I knew, and I had said this countless times before-that I am successful because of what I’ve done, but I don’t know that if I hadn’t I would’ve failed. I did it because I was scared, and stupid rather than out of malice and ambition. Worst of all, despite everything, I couldn’t have the woman I love.

The weight of my mistakes was so heavy, I actually wanted to die. I didn’t have any arguments to make, I couldn’t defend anything anymore and all that I could give in reply was silence.

I woke up a while later, staring at the clock beside my bed showing 9 am. The glass I had with me last night rested on the floor. I still swear I didn’t drink too much, but the glass seemed to disagree. I realized that it was just a dream, and they did make it clear at the beginning of it. As of writing this I think I’m still alive. I don’t know if I was spared, or judged to be worthy of a second chance. Whatever it was, there were changes to be made. The first thing I did was I called her and ask her to meet with me. With a lot of hesitation and courage, I told her that I had feelings for her. She said that it was strange of me to say this, first thing in the morning, and asked if I was alright. She told me that she would call me later.

She and I both knew that it would be very difficult for us to be together, for reasons that I can hardly even speak about, but all I knew was that I wanted to be with her. With her, I could be brave and hard-working and with her support I could do things that I would never do. I would be a better man, for her and myself. I would quit drinking, I would start studying philosophy and psychology, and I would finally treat people better. I had already risked losing her by confessing to her, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be better than I was and I wanted to be with her more than anything in the world. This was the beginning of a new life, and it didn’t matter how it would turn out with her for I knew that I had taken the first step towards my redemption and self-repair.

She said yes.