‘Yes.’
‘The onus probandi – the burden of proof – was on this posse. And what evidence did you discover? Did veritate triumpho?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your posse revelared that the programma was sorcered from the index librorum prohibitorum.’
‘Yes.’
At last, the procurator has a witness ameekable to his questioning – someone who seems to have no interest in upstaging or downcasting him. ‘And quod erat demonstrandum the defendant’s crimen?’ Before Stillwell can answer, the procurator realises his mistake in asking something that demands more than a monosyllable. ‘Allow me to refaze,’ he says, his hand dramatically raised. ‘Did you uncover prima facie?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is this your res ipsa loquitur?
The ‘yes’ reply is softer this time, more just the sibilance of a sigh.
‘Declamatio, please,’ insists the procurator.
‘Yes.’
‘I present ad curiam Exhibit A.’
I’m in pains to see what he’s talking about, but the strain is unnecessary. Procurator Brimlad moves around the room, proffering the object on a platter like wedding cake. A woman in the gallery screams and tries to clamber back over the rows above hers. Most in the crowd are confused. At first all I can see is a transparent yellowish plastic block. Then, as he moves round the arc of the gallery, I see it. Eda-Lyn is set in resin like the book in the repository’s display case. Not just cast out, but cast in. Untouchable.
All my head hollows fill with weep water. Dead brackish pools no squid ink will stir. No black words from the page to murk the LipService. No way to raise a sleeve to a brine-brindled face. No, no, no. Noisy squalls that wash the sandbars of my face away. She that’s more me cups her hands below my jaw to collect the run off. Her face is so terrifyingly close I can see how it’s drawn on with makeup. Now, as she moulds her features with all that has leaked out of me and is lost, cheeks, chin and forehead all become more defined, more real. Already she has the scar in her eyebrow. Do I still have mine? It itches where the bare skin between the hairs should be. Soon I’ll be the immaterial one. She’s leaving me unsavoury, to taste of nothing.
I don’t see or hear the orderly approach. Did the judge shout, call for silence? Only the bore of the needle pries into flesh and consciousness. It opens a tunnel into mind and matter that collapses on itself.
‘The defendant is sedated, your Honour.’
I don’t sleep at night. Stillwell knew where the book was hidden. No one else. Stillwell, the head of the forensic investigation. Stillwell my friend. I feel the hum come on all electric. The pound of blood and beating sashimi fist.
Orderly rubber soles squeak against the new polish of morning, scuffling me into the chair and dullness. Benzo days. I sit in court unminded. What I remember is madness mongering. Mrs Mondaine, my teacher of long ago, was called and arrived accompanied by a class of children dressed for a brand-mascot parade. One had a live LipService Polly Parrot. It mimicked everything being said
‘Sentencing today, so no benzo,’ says the orderly. ‘The Surgeon Legal wants you of sound mind.’ He thinks that’s funny. In the Ether Jar, my wheelchair is turned for the first time to face the judge’s operating table rather than the gallery.
Judge Mannix begins reading, ‘As ruled ab initio, the defendant has been found guilty by the processus per inquisitionem on the counts of breaking and entering into EmPath Industries’ property, the misappropriation of materia medica and tampering therewith, joined with the charge of compelled self-defamation pursuant to the consumption of said contaminated materia by members of the Copywriters’ Association.’
He takes a deep breath before continuing. ‘This incursus on our modus vivendi cannot be tolerated. Of courts, culpae poenae par esto – the punishment must fit the crime. In proclamaring her sentence every time she speaks, the felon shall maledictio herself and it shall memento her ignominia and be horribile dictu for all to hear. This sentence was written curtsy of the Copywriters’ Association and shall be read by their representatus.’
Now that I face the judge, I have to twist against the restraints to see that it’s Wordini who rises from his seat in the front row of the gallery and reads my sentence: ‘I pay for Lip Disservice; I hang my tongue in shame.’
He lets a black tongue droop out of his mouth so that the crowd recedes from it like a hairline.
Once Wordini is seated again, the judge announces, ‘The felon convictus will now intact her sentence.’
An orderly applies a patch to my neck and releases the restraints on my hands and feet before pulling me to my feet. A second stands by. They wait as I hunch over the jolt.
‘Now, let us hear the vox veritas. Speak!’ orders Judge Mannix.
I don’t want to. I won’t. The orderly thumps me on the back as if I were choking and the words fall out like half-chewed meat: ‘I pay for Lip Disservice; I hang my tongue in shame.’
The crowd mocks and caterwauls. Are those even words they’re hurling? The knives are out again. Used transdermals pelt down. The hissing and booing drowns out the judge, who is reading the rest of the sentence regardless. There’s a brownish smudge on the adhesive side of the patch that’s landed at my foot. Meaning won’t stick any more.
21
In that cell, after the trial, I lost all whyfor. There was no reason in being. My pieces no longer fitted; they had grown apart. Once I woke in my cot to my screamed sentence – ‘I pay for Lip Disservice; I hang my tongue in shame.’ In my nightmare, I was shouting something else, but those words were the only ones possible out loud. As I lay there, something took shape in the dark umbrage I felt towards all patched expression – the word morth, my first shadow word. It’s undefined. It bites the lip instead of serving it. It means nothing to anyone but me. I created its sound and its sense. It’s entirely mine. No more second-hand language for me. Slowly, slowly, I’m adding to the shadow words – perguiling my vocabulary. Eventually, when I ramble, it won’t be on the treacherous lie of the land.
It’s weeks, maybe a month later that a copywriter with the page name Verbociter comes to speak to me. She says that, among a certain ‘coterie of copyrati’, my LitService has ‘revived interest in leveraging book resources for brand differentiation’. As a result, a liberarian is once again needed at the repository to meet this demand.
I listen to how her ugly club-footed words make her stump speeches. Of course, she says, there’s ‘no rewriting the wrong’: I am still condemned to my sentence. She has, however, discovered that the terms of my conviction make provision for a parole d’honneur spoken by a suitable corporate champion and has lobbied her association to apply. All the ‘dread tape’ has been taken care of. She just needs to scan my fingerprints as consent.
I think of that other contract in Dr Bromide’s office and I try to read the document on her device. She lets me but my mind is as small a lurk-hole as my cell, and neither can accommodate legal furniture. Besides, just the thought of getting out and returning to the book repository fills that tiny space like a carp in a goldfish bowl. I let her print me.