It Is Done

Room 1502...”Domestic Relations”, the realm of the Honorable Judge Berger. Her court exudes a stark solemnity. It is an homage to oak veneer and modernity. A paean to sharp angles and quiet efficiency.

Nailed to the wall is an eye-catching clock, bold and determined to show us the time...as if time mattered in a room where dreams come to die.

I feel dead inside this room.

The others seem as caricatures, each playing a dutiful role in this oddly intimate gathering: judge, clerk, court reporter, marshal, attorneys, my once-beautiful bride...and I. I am watching from a distance, from some place deep within. But I am dead to all of it.

I am fixated on the sunshine slanting through the hallway beyond the open court room door.

That sunbeam was the only thing that mattered now.

* * *

As my attorney and I were walking to the court house, she turned to me and said: “You paid a high price for your freedom.”

Yes, indeed, I had paid a very high price. Perhaps I’ll even come to learn I paid too steep a price. No matter. I paid what I had to pay
for that skinniest of slim chances to bask in the sun again. If only
for a little while. If only in my dreams...

* * *

On March 11, 2008, at 4:34 PM Central Daylight Savings Time,
I was granted the freedom to seek the sun...

* * *