Sunshine

                               Painting by Dreama Tolle Perry


She went running from one end of the building to another. It was all a maze with every floor having at least 6 court rooms and the building having different wings. She couldn’t quiet remember which court room number was the case in or even which floor. She was running short of time as the Judges began their proceedings for the day, sharp at 10. The court rooms smelt of a curious mixture of old paper, that decaying smell that comes from the stacks and stacks of dusty files, piled one on top of the other and a clinical smell of the disinfectant that strips away every bit of the individual character of the rooms and brings them all to an equal level, much like a Court wherein the barriers and divides between the two parties are broken for just that short span of time before the Judge.

It was a cold winter morning in December and the court rooms were draughty with wind whistling in through the cracks of the window panes and one could see the city shrouded in fog. Winter was late this year and the predictable meteorological department had not been able to predict the sudden offset of winter. She still hadn’t found the correct court room because all the rooms looked identical in every floor. All she remembered of that particular court room that day had been the sunlight that had come flooding in through the west facing windows. That court room had been oddly devoid of any dampness and the Judge had seemed particularly vigorous and lively.

Just five minutes to go and there were 6 rooms left for her inspect and find out the correct court room or had she mistakenly missed it when she saw a shaft of sunlight being reflected on one shining wooden door. She ran inside through the half opened door and there it was, all brown and warm with polished wooden surfaces, the sunniest Court Room of all, in the dark and dingy District Court Complex.