Eden

44

I'm listening as the crowd talks around me, mostly just because I can. Because whatever language everyone is actually speaking in, I hear all of it as English. I'm listening, curious, trying to find out what's happening, and that becomes clear fairly quickly, as I do.

All around me, people are saying the tied-up woman has done something terrible.

She has killed someone, it sounds like.

I'm a little shocked they're so casual about it. And surprised such things happen here, too.

I keep listening, a bit concerned, and from what the crowd is saying, I realize there's about to be a trial. Or rather, that this is the trial. It seems to have already started, now that everyone is gathered here on the bridge.

The grim people in the middle of the crowd have begun talking, but quietly, among themselves. They're being all sombre and terribly grave, as if they're deciding important things that shouldn't be discussed in loud voices. As they talk, a few other people join in, saying things to those grimmer people which I think might be the formal accusations, because the grimmer people just stand and listen, and then nod, and look around.

They glance at each other, and then there's a bit of coughing and waving and clearing of throats, and the crowd goes quiet. Their entertainment is beginning, I suppose, and everyone wants to hear.

One of the grim people begins making a speech. I can't catch all of what he says, and it's actually quite hard to follow, because even though I'm concentrating on him, now, and trying to listen carefully, I'm missing parts of what he's saying. He's talking, but talking very formally, almost reciting his words, and the words he's saying seem to be words everyone already knows to expect, so he's speaking fast, and not very clearly, as if reciting a speech as quickly as he can. He's probably assuming this is a formality, and everyone else already knows what he's saying. And from the way the crowd is only half-listening, everyone probably does. Everyone except me.

He's making a speech, though, saying things about justice and witnesses and who saw what. I assume this is how every trial starts. He says that bit, and then he says the tied-up woman is accused of murder, and asks the crowd if she did it, and half the crowd, all at once, shout yes she did, and that they saw her.

Which seems bad for her. That many witnesses, I mean.