One thing I haven’t mentioned was that everyone, especially the lawyers, liked to go to lots of parties. But they would go to particular parties. There were some who liked to go to parties where everyone wore blue. The man who was like a Yorkshire terrier led these parties. Others preferred parties where everyone wore red. The leader of these parties didn’t believe in opinions and so never had any. There were a few who liked parties where yellow was worn, but no-one really took them seriously and no-one could ever remember the name of their leader. When the man was arrested some new parties started which they called ‘stay at home’ parties. They didn’t have a leader.
Another lot of parties that began at that time were ‘let’s kill the man’ parties, also known as exit parties as they always wanted to leave things. The most important man who attended these exit parties was the chief prosecutor. He was a blokey bloke, who bloked around and had a blokey time with other blokes and blokesses. He was liked by blokes and non-blokes for his down to earth, plain speaking, such as ‘the great and the good will decide what is great and good for us and make sure that we get what is great and good for us, whilst the little and bad will decide what is little and bad and make sure we get what is little and bad, and the medium and goodish bad will decide what is in the middle of the road so that we don’t get run over by the great and the good or the little and the bad.’ What could be clearer than that?
Now the Chief Prosecutor had left after the guilty verdict to go on holiday to Belgium. He had popped back again a few times in order to check arrangements were going ahead for the death sentence to be carried out. But generally he went off to be with foreigners so he could tell them how much he hated them.
The condemned man was given another defence lawyer, just in case he was allowed to make an appeal. It was the defence lawyer’s job to coordinate the campaign for a retrial. But the problem was no-one knew who he was. The defendant had to play hide and seek with the defence lawyer, but never won. Was the defence lawyer attending the ‘stay at home’ parties? Or was he at a party where they wore yellow? Maybe, but these were small parties where you couldn’t hide very well. The people who supported the man kept looking for the defence lawyer, but lost heart and so didn’t know where to express their objections to the death sentence. And whenever they did, they got slapped round the face by the chief prosecutor and his blokes and blokesses, saying they had no right to speak against the democratic will of the jury.
In spite of that there was a call for a re-trial. But the second chief of the lawyers in the country (remember her? She was the one who ran off into the wheat field) and the third chief of the lawyers in the country (the man who was like a Yorkshire terrier) said the jury had given a democratic verdict and to challenge that was treason. Some argued that because so many lies were told at the trial there should be a re-trial, but the death-sentence supporters pointed out that lies were told on both sides, so that was ok. After all, we all know that two wrongs make a right.
So, what happened next? Well, remember the lawyers and the man who was like a Yorkshire terrier were arguing about his plan to carry out the death sentence on the 31st? The man who was like a Yorkshire terrier insisted it absolutely would be the 31st or he would eat his hair. But then the man who was like a Yorkshire terrier suddenly had an amazing idea. How about if the death sentence wasn’t carried out on the 31st? He was so pleased with his idea he ran round the law offices yapping excitedly. He said it would happen on the 31st January or he would eat his whole self, which was probably easier when he was a Yorkshire terrier than when he was a cocker spaniel.
Then suddenly he had another idea. He was so excited by having two ideas in one month that he ran twice round the law offices yapping excitedly. His idea was that the democratic jury would be allowed to vote on whether each and every lawyer should be a lawyer and whether there should be new lawyers, like Captain Marvel or SpongeBob SquarePants. The lawyers weren’t that keen on having an election where they might lose their jobs, but decided to trust in the democratic integrity of the jury. After all, they hadn’t let them down before.
But then they argued over the date. The yellow party people wanted the 9th December so the man who is like a Yorkshire terrier wouldn’t have time to have any more ideas. They really felt two in one month was exhausting enough. They were also worried he might re-introduce his kitchen knife idea and run at the man while no-one was looking. But the man who was like a Yorkshire terrier insisted it had to be the 12th because Tuesday was his lucky day and on the 9th he had an appointment at the Yorkshire terrier grooming parlour and it would take all day.
Now the man who was like a Yorkshire terrier had got very cross with some of the lawyers who went to the parties he liked (where they wore blue) for objecting to his idea of killing the man with a kitchen knife. So he wouldn’t let them go to any of the parties where they wore blue. After a few days he agreed that 10 of them could go, provided they agreed to be whipped in order to discourage anyone who wanted to question his authority. The reason he let them back was he wasn’t very good at maths and found it hard to add up the numbers without a few more people to help. The other people who had objected wanted to go to the parties and be whipped, but he wouldn’t let them as they refused to agree to everything he said.
So the re-election of the lawyers was set, once the man who is like a Yorkshire terrier had finished his hurdle race. Some young people wanted to go on the jury and vote, but the man who was like a Yorkshire terrier said no as he might lose the vote. Also he said they should all be in school playing online games, not worrying about things that they had no business to, especially as they’d had so much time off rebelling against the world coming to an end and other trivial matters.
The chief prosecutor came back in order to stand in the election of lawyers. In fact he stated that he single-handedly intended to fight to take the place of every lawyer in the country. Everyone got really excited because there were so many Polish people in the country who could predict the outcome of the election. Every time another Pole made their prediction it would be printed in all the legal magazines and discussed at length. It was strange really because generally most people wanted to get away from foreigners, especially Europeans.
Meanwhile the condemned man had to wait for the results of this election to know what his fate was going to be. And so will all of us. On this exciting cliffhanger I have to leave it. I hope you all can stand the suspense.
Short stories 