SATWE...Sequestered...Saturday Writing Essential

Challenge: I’m winging it here, folks: let me hear about your jury duty stories. Use prose or poetry to tell me about that time you were on a jury, faced a jury, or managed to get out of jury duty.

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Sequestered

Day 1- So here I sit thinking there I sat. This guy is a prime example of a nut case and I can't talk to anyone about it so I've chosen to write in my journal. I can't watch TV or listen to the radio or read the newspaper. What I can do is read one of the several books they gave us a choice of but I could care less about reading a book when all I can think about is his eyes. The guys eyes, he looked right at me once and I wanted to hide.

Day 2- Just my luck, it looks like this case might go for a week or more. Today they showed pictures, a whole family taken hostage by one man who controlled their every move until each one of them breathed their last breath. Every time I wrote notes today, I felt like he was trying to pull my pen out of my hand with his eyes. One of the other jurors panicked and had to be taken from the courtroom until she calmed down. He has some awful power about him.

Day 3- More pictures. The blood was everywhere. Did he bathe in it? They found a dagger type knife covered in blood with his finger prints. Each person was first stabbed multiple times only enough to injure them and cause them pain and bleeding. Then they were slowly gutted alive. There was an audible gasp in the courtroom when the attorney explained the theory, I felt sick. He just stared straight ahead and smiled.

Day 4- The defense attorney didn't have much to say except that someone planted the knife and prints and there wasn't enough evidence to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecuting attorney reminded us that he was caught inside the basement where he killed the seven family members with the knife and confessed to having done the crime. With that they finally let us out of that rotten courtroom and into a conference room to deliberate. I thought it would have been open and shut but one man kept saying he just wasn't sure (how could he NOT be sure?) so we couldn't all agree. Back to the drawing board tomorrow.

Day 5- Everybody is eating lunch. I'm not hungry. I want to go home. I'll finally get to go home, we've made our decision. He keeps looking at us, all of us. What if he was to get out of jail? Could he find us? Could he do to us what he did to them?

The Reading-

As the Judge's questions are answered, we begin to hear a low chuckle coming from the suspect that slowly gets louder as each first degree murder charge is addressed. Before the Judge can rap his gavel, the suspect stands up and points to each one of us and screams "You! All of you will die!" The judge quickly summons the bailiff to get him out of the courtroom but not quick enough. All of us are left terrified. Jury duty is for the birds.