Image by Venita Oberholster from Pixabay and edited using Canva
I sat listening as the case was read out, listening to all my crimes being presented to the jury.
Actions claimed to be mine yet I have no memory of ever doing them.
But I can't even drive
I wondered, yet I stayed quiet, trusting in my lawyer to help keep me from the jail term.
"Defendant, how do you plea?" The judge asks, looking at me with eyes that had already confirmed my fate.
"Not guilty." The court was silent at the blatant plea of my lawyer.
To be honest I was scared to, all the evidence points to me, the only reason I'm not behind bars yet is because there were no clear sightings.
Just a silhouette that faintly does look like mine.
"Please come and present your case." The Judge tells my lawyer.
"Oh I have no case", he says sitting on the desk.
"I'm just certain that all this wasn't done by my client." The Prosecutor laughed out loud, causing the whole jury to laugh with him.
The laugh was silenced by the hitting of the gavel. "I will have order in my court." The judge pronounced.
"Defendant L, if you don't have a case, how do you know your client is not guilty?" The judge asked with a hint of curiosity in his eyes.
I noticed that despite the laughter nobody made any snide remarks and looked at my lawyer respectfully and with a bit of curiosity too, making me wonder who exactly did come to help me in court.
"Well at the point of this young fellows arrest and when he was to be assigned a defendant, I was intrigued by the case", he explained.
"A case that seemed to finally be through, all evidence points to him, at the time of all incidents he was always alone and couldn't give any concrete information of his whereabouts. It just had to be him that did it..."
"Where are you going with this?" The Prosecutor asked cutting him off.
"Are you trying to say he was framed?" The Prosecutor asks again, his eyebrows raised questioningly.
"Yes L, I think we would all like to know where you're going with this." The judge said.
I too was a bit curious.
Was I really framed?
If I was, that would indeed mean that I didn't do anything, although it wouldn't explain my lack of memory.
"Like I was saying", L continued looking sternly at the Prosecutor as though saying, "don't cut me off again , dimwit.".
"He clearly had to be the one to do it.... Unless he wasn't."
There was an uproar of noise in the hall right then.
The Prosecutor started laughing, even I was caught off guard by the turn around.
The gavel sounded again.
"Explain yourself L." The judge demanded, with no hint of curiosity or amusement in his eyes.
"Well before we came here, I decided to question my client." He stood up from the table and began walking.
"When brought with a question and you, the one answering, decides to lie, the human body gives it away." He paused in front of the judge.
"No matter how small the lie or how good the liar or even the lie wasn't intentional, there would always be a reaction. A change of the heartbeat, increased sweat, cracked or high voice, a tremor in the ear or digits, the body would react. There would be a change in behavior as the lie itself is a change from regular behavior.
He turned flamboyantly to the jury.
"Take for example I ask a question to our Lord judge."
"Sir, did you take the bus here?"
"Of course not, I have a car." The judge answered smiling.
"What colour is your car, sir?" L asked again
"Sky blue." The judge answered, eyes briefly darting through the window
"What type Sir?"
"It's a Hiace". The judge answered dejectedly.
L smiled and stepped back.
"I'm guessing I don't need to explain to you what happened My Lord."
"No you don't." He said, smiling a bit.
L turned to the crowd again. "The judge just lied to us right now, although unintentionally. Due to the pressure of the environment and the speed to which I asked the question, he fumbled on question number 2."
What is the colour of his car
I thought inwardly.
"His car is royal blue not light blue, a rather easy mistake but the pressure got to him and he looked at the first light blue car he could see and using that changed the make of his car from a Toyota Camry to a Hiace."
One of the guards prompted by L opened the curtain to reveal the Hiace parked outside.
"That's your car isn't it?" L asked the prosecutor who was dumbfounded by the presentation.
"I'm sure most of you are thinking about what this has to do with the case today. Well just before entering here, I did the same trick with my boss and he answered everything the same way, no matter how quick and twisted I brought the question."
I remembered the 'conversation' he said we should have just before entering the room
"Today of all days when the pressure is highest, he still answered everything the same way he has been answering for weeks, the same stories no changes."
He looked at me and flashed a toothy grin.
"Coupled with evidence I just got, it made me believe that my client Miles Mores isn't guilty."
Evidence?? What evidence??
"His double personality is."
"What?? Double personality?" The judge asked, looking at me.
I was also shocked at the diagnosis, I've never...
"Yes, Miles has a double personality, an atrocious punk called Craig who's been on a roll this week." He took out his phone and connected it to the projectors.
"I took the liberty of collecting and destroying the camera clips around Miles' house. What I saw shocked me."
He played the clip and there I was at 3 in the morning, coming into the driveway in a stolen car.
"I also put some recorders in his detention cell. It seems that this personality comes only when Miles is tired and sleepy, locking Miles out of his own body, thus giving him no memory of what is happening when Craig is in charge."
He played the recording in court and there was my voice.
"Ahhh you've gone and done it Craig. Now you're in a prison dammit!!!"
I shivered as I tried remembering this
"What are you going to do about this?"
There was a sound of metal falling.
"Okay, you still have the knife Incase anything happens, it's okay, chill, it's alright."
"Miles?" L's voice sounded in the recording.
"Miles are you okay bro." L asked
I started having flashbacks, and I had a blinding headache.
The sound of the door opening rang out from the speakers connected to the recorder as I fell on the ground from the headache.
"I'm never going to jail you bastard!!" I heard and remembered as Craig ran and attacked L with the knife, cutting him in his hand. L knocked him out.
The guards rushed to pick me up.
"Don't touch him."
I looked around and saw that I was watching the scene from a screen of sorts, I tried to talk but my mouth didn't say anything, I tried to move but my body didn't respond.
I watched as L folded up his sleeves to show the bandage wrapped around his forearm that's stained with a bit of blood.
Suddenly I heard my body speak.
"I'm not going to prison you damned lawyer."
L smiled back, a scary grin this time.
"Welcome Craig." He smiled
"Now the trial begins."
