100 Words -Woodman

Pat decided that the man across the road had read a booklet on camping and was doing everything he could to follow its directives. He spent the entire weekend, day and night, hot and cold, in a white t-shirt and khaki shorts. He labored over his fire pit for hours on end in search of the perfect flame. He used a full can of lighter each day. He had to send his sons off on their electric scooters to obtain an axe. When they returned with one he chopped firewood as recklessly as I've ever seen but escaped fingers intact.

No Jury Duty For Tom

It took all day and I was only one lawyer rejection away from having my named called from the random list but it was not to be. The jury box filled up and we few remaining stragglers were dismissed.

The morning was interesting, especially the watching the check-in process. So many angry people and confused people who expected the clerk/receptionist to solve all their problems despite her constant attempts to explain that she did not have the power of a judge. The most amazing thing was how many had failed to read and/or understand their summons letters.

Then we got to watch the orientation video. It wasn't so much informational as inspirational. Mostly it had recent jurors explaining how much they enjoyed the experience. It should have been titled THE HAPPY JUROR.

Pretty soon we were all called up to the courtroom. It was funny because the clerk had to call each of our names even though the lust included everyone in the room. We all filed into the courtroom and quickly discovered there weren't nearly enough chairs. The bailiff had to go steal chairs from other courtrooms.

The judge came out and thanked us for coming then explained that the trial would take about a week. People freaked! Then he explained the legal concept of impossibility, and how only people with genuine impossibilities would be excused. He had people raise their hands if they believed the should be excused or if they didn't understand English very well. Those of us who didn't raise our hands were given an hour out of the courtroom.

When we got back most of the hand raisers were still there. Also there were the lawyers and the defendant, who was dressed almost identically to me. Creepy.

Then the jury selection began and things bogged down considerably. The same questions were asked over-and-over again. The removals started pretty quickly and consistently. At first it seemed like the lawyers and the judge were going after the blandest jury possible but if you paid attention you saw the patterns in their questions and how it weeded out people who would be biased one way or the other.

This brings out an interesting point. The people who claimed at first to have a biased were all revealed through the questioning to be fair-minded people. It was the people who most loudly proclaimed their lack of bias that were revealed to be the more closed-minded.

Watching all this it was pretty easy to tell who was trying to get out of jury duty by answering in a way that they thought that would lead to the lawyers rejecting them. Unfortunately for most of them the cross-questioning exposed their true intent. Though I did see at least one woman whose answers, if they weren't genuine, caused just the right amount of doubt in the prosecutor’s mind.

Through all this there was an occasional diversion that caused some laughter by all involved. Apparently asking someone if they don't understand English, in English, isn't going to get you full results. Several people who were questioned were not native speakers and did their best to keep up but ultimately had to raise their hands in surrender.

So at 4:30 there were only a few of left unquestioned and each of the lawyers had two more jurors to dismiss, but all of a sudden it was done. Both lawyers passed on their last two refusals and the jury selection was finished. We were dismissed. Ah well, maybe next year.

100 Words - Her Valley Pt. 1

The valley was quiet. Then the machines came. The men in machines. The noise and smoke drove the birds from the sky.

When it's dark like this I like to sit quietly and think of nothing. In order to properly think of nothing I must have my eyes open. To close them invites dreams and sleep. To open them in daylight invites perception and perception leads always to
thought.

She was beautiful in body and soul but was as dumb as a skunk on Tuesday. She chased the men and their machines from the valley.

100 Words - Stupid Humans

Colors beyond perception tease the dogs in the window. They bark at the things that linger just outside appearance. The people in the house yell for the dogs to be quiet. The dogs stare at their humans in disbelief. How can they not sense the danger that lurks out there. It could be anything making those colors almost be there. A multi-dimensional cat bent on world domination? A demon from hell in the guise of an old woman with a shopping cart? Or maybe something worse and more outrageous. Stupid humans, they will never understand. The world is dangerous.

Highlight of my day

Today I got to scrape a half-eaten pigeon carcass off the fence in our back yard.

It was actually kind of a freaky sight. One does not expect to see such a thing draped over the top of a fence. We have a gopher problem, but couldn't imagine a gopher taking down a pigeon let alone drag it up a wooden fence.

Feral cats and raccoons use our back yard as a route to the apple tree in the neighbor's yard. Again it seemed likely that either would leave their prey in such a manner.

A quick internet search revealed that it was probably either an owl or a hawk. Both like to devour their victims on fence tops. The weird thing is that my parents on the other side of the country witnessed this very thing outside their window. A hawk in the process of killing a pigeon landed on their chainlink fence but it could get solid footing so it took with it's kill.
So I've never heard of hawks eating pigeons on fences and now it's happened to my parents and me, 3000 miles apart, both in the same month. Weird.

100 words - Norman

Two weeks after Norman flunked out of college he came to the realization that he would never be a mechanical engineer. He went to the pawn shop and bought an electric guitar. He spent the next year locked in his parent's attic learning how to play it. When he emerged back into the world he had long hair and a long scraggly beard but he kept on wearing the bow ties. That would be his hook throughout his music career. He would be famous as the rock-and-roller who wore the bow ties. It might have worked if was any good.

100 Words - Empty Shelves

Logan bought the last Pepsi. He drank it straight down right there in front of everyone. Didn't share a drop. There was some talk of beating him to a pulp but the crowd was more sad than angry so Logan was able to walk away unharmed.

Larry surveyed his nearly empty shelves. He sat down by the big picture window and stared out across the plain, hoping once again that a delivery truck would appear with fresh supplies, or maybe even a car with some news. No radio. No TV. No deliveries. No traffic. What was going on out there?