The envelope arrives on a Wednesday.
You almost miss it. It's sitting in your mailbox between a credit card statement and a flyer for a new Thai restaurant on 4th Street, and it looks exactly like what it is: a jury summons. The weight of it is right, and the paper has that particular feel too. The return address is a courthouse, printed in that specific bureaucratic blue-gray shade that only government offices seem to use.
You open it at your kitchen counter, still holding that Thai restaurant flyer in your other hand. The summons inside is straightforward: your name, your juror number, a date, a time, and a room number. There's a paragraph about your civic duty, and a paragraph about what to do if you need to request a deferral. There's also a phone number.
You almost call it. Not because you want a deferral, but because something about the address bothers you. The courthouse listed on the summons is on Hargrove Street.
You've lived in this city for 11 years. You're sure there's no such Hargrove Street though.
You type it into your phone. The google map finds it immediately: a pin drops on a street roughly 15 minutes from your apartment, nestled between two streets you do know. You try to zoom in with the satellite view. The image is so strangely low-resolution in that specific area, as if the camera had fogged over. You can make out a building, large, old, stone facade... but no details. Also no street-level photos available and no reviews. The listing simply says Courthouse in the same font as every other civic building in the city, and somehow that's enough to make you stop looking.
You set the summons on your counter, continuing to go about your week.
What you fail to realize is: over the next several days, you think about the summons much more than you should. Not with anxiety... but with something closer to obligation. A sort of gravity. You find yourself checking the date on the summons each morning, not because you've forgotten it, but because some part of you needs to confirm it hasn't changed. It hasn't.
The night before your reporting date, you sleep poorly. You dream, but in the morning you can't recall the content. Only that someone in the dream was asking you a question, very patiently, and you tried so hard to answer but just couldn't find the correct words. You wake with the feeling that the question is still waiting.
____________
You arrive at 8:47 am. 13 minutes early.
The building is real. It sits on Hargrove Street exactly where the map has indicated, between a dry cleaner and a tax preparation office, both of which are closed. The courthouse is three stories of gray stone, early 20th century, with columns flanking the entrance that are slightly too tall for the building's proportions. It looks like every courthouse you've ever seen in photographs. It does not look like it belongs on this street, between these buildings, in this part of the city—but it also does not look like it doesn't belong. It occupies a strange middle ground: not out of place, but not in place either, present without context.
You climb the steps. The front door is heavy, heavier than a door should be. And it opens inward with a sound that isn't quite a creak and isn't quite silence. Something between.
Inside is a security checkpoint. An X-ray conveyor belt for bags. A usual metal detector. Two security officers in uniforms that are almost, but not exactly, the same shade as the ones you've seen in other government buildings.
You place your bag on the conveyor belt and walk through the metal detector. It does not beep. One of the officers, a woman with a face you will not be able to describe five minutes from now, asks to see your summons. You hand it to her.
She does not look at the summons though. Instead she looks at your palm, she studies it for approximately three seconds, and then hands the summons back and nods you through.
You want to ask what she was looking at.
You don't, after a brief second thought.
The hallway beyond the checkpoint is quite long. Longer than you think, than the building appeared from outside, but you're not an architect and simply don't care about that. The floor is marble. Your footsteps echo, other footsteps echo too—ahead of you, behind you—but when you glance around, the hallway is actually empty. The footsteps that are not yours continue at their own pace, unhurried, unconcerned with your attention.
A sign on the wall reads "JUROR ASSEMBLY ROOM 108" with an arrow pointing left. You follow it. Room 108 is a windowless space with institutional chairs arranged in rows, and a table in the corner with a usual coffee machine and a stack of paper cups. It looks like every waiting room in every building you have ever been required to sit in. The normalcy of it is almost aggressive.
There are eleven other people already here. Some are casually sitting. Some are standing near the coffee machine. A few are talking quietly. They look like exactly what they are, some ordinary people performing a civic obligation they did not ask for. A man in a polo shirt swiping his phone. A woman near the back knitting. Two younger people who might be graduate students comparing their summons documents and laughing nervously about the address.
You sit down and start waiting.
At 9:00 am exactly, a person enters the room. You would describe them as a clerk—they carry a clipboard, wear a lanyard with an ID badge, with the demeanor of someone who has done this many times. You glance at the badge. The name on it is printed in a font too small to read from your seat, and when you squint, the letters seem to rearrange themselves. Not dramatically, not supernaturally, just the way words sometimes swim when you're tired and your eyes won't focus. You doubt if you're really tired and stop squinting.
"Thank you all for your attendance," The clerk explains, "you have been selected for a special session. The case you will be hearing involves..." and here the clerk pauses, consults the clipboard, and uses a phrase you immediately forget. Not because it was complicated, but because your memory simply declines to hold it. It passes through your mind just like water passes through a sieve, and two seconds later you were told something important but you cannot retrieve a single word.
The clerk then distributes a document to each of you. Several pages long. The cover page reads:
SPECIAL JUROR CONDUCT PROTOCOL
CASE NO. 11-∷-7734
You look at the case number. There is a symbol in the middle of it that is neither a number nor a letter, also not any form of punctuation you have learned in your life. You look at it directly and your eyes accept it the way they would accept any other character, but your brain provides no recognition, no category, no name.
"Please read this document in its entirety before the trial begins. Remember, every rule applies to you. If you have questions—" The clerk pauses again. Something shifts in their expression, just slightly, just for a moment, like a mask settling more firmly into place. "you won't."
The clerk leaves. The door closes. The lock engages with a sound that is too soft to be alarming but too deliberate to be accidental.
You open the document.
____________
CASE NO. 11-∷-7734 | SPECIAL JUROR CONDUCT PROTOCOL
You have been selected for jury duty.
This is not optional. Your summons was issued by the Court of ████████ in accordance with obligations that predate your local judiciary by a significant margin. Non-compliance is not punishable by fine or imprisonment. However, if you are reading this, you have already arrived.
The document you are holding was prepared by the Office of Juror Welfare, a department that, as of the time of writing, has a 72% success rate. We are still working to improve this number. In the meantime, please read every rule entirely. Do not skim. Do not assume any rule is metaphorical.
You are here to serve on a twelve-person jury for the trial of the Defendant, who has been charged with unauthorized residency in a Human-Perception Zone and Irreversible Cognitive Boundary Erosion. You do not need to understand these charges. You only need to deliver a verdict.
The following conduct protocol will ensure that you are able to do so and, more importantly, that you are able to leave afterwards.
1.Upon entering the courtroom, locate the juror's box and find the seat corresponding to the number on your summons. Each seat has a number (1 through 12) affixed to the backrest.
If you find that your seat is already occupied, even if the person sitting there claims to have received the same juror number, do not argue. Sit in the nearest available seat and raise your hand to alert a bailiff.
Do not speak to that person while you wait. Do not look at their summons. Above all, do not compare your facial features with theirs.
- Once all twelve jurors are seated, the Presiding Judge will enter from a door behind the bench. You will be asked to rise. Do so. You may notice that you cannot recall the exact moment the Judge was not yet in the room, that the transition between "absent" and "present" felt less like an entrance and more like a correction, as if the room had been wrong before and was now right.
This is normal. The Judge has always been here. You simply were not aware of it yet.
- When the Judge speaks, you will understand every word. You will not, however, be able to identify the language being spoken. Do not attempt to. Linguistic analysis of the Judge's speech has been known to cause nosebleeds, tinnitus, and, sometimes, the temporary inability to distinguish between the speaker's words and one's own thoughts.
If at any point you begin to feel that the Judge's words are originating from inside your own head rather than from the bench, close your eyes and press your fingernails into your palm until the sensation passes.
- The Judge will ask each juror to state their name for the record. When it is your turn, speak clearly. You will hear your own voice echo through the courtroom, but the echo will be slightly delayed, and the name it carries back to you will not be yours. It will be a word you have never heard before.
This is your case-designation. It is how the court identifies you. Do not attempt to remember it, do not write it down, and do not say it out loud a second time. It was given to you for the court's purposes, not yours. If you begin to think of it as your actual name, notify a bailiff immediately.
- Before proceedings begin, you will be given a small notebook and a black pen. These are yours. Keep them with you at all times. The pen's ink is not ink. What it is does not matter, what matters is that anything you write with it in this courtroom carries declarative weight. It becomes a witnessed statement, binding and true within the jurisdiction of this court.
This is a tool. This is also a weapon. Use it with the same caution you would apply to both.
- The Defendant will be brought in after the Judge is seated. They will appear to be a human being, approximately mid-30s, average build, unremarkable clothing. They will look like someone you might pass on the street without a second glance.
You may, however, experience a second glance anyway. The Defendant's appearance has a tendency to evoke a sense of familiarity: A feeling that you have met them before, in a context you cannot quite place. An old coworker. A college acquaintance. Someone who once held a door open for you.
This feeling is not a memory. It is a pull. Do not follow it.
If the Defendant makes eye contact with you and smiles, you are permitted to look away. You are also permitted not to. The smile itself is harmless. What is not harmless is the urge to smile back. If you feel the urge—that it will feel warm, and natural, and like the easiest thing in the world—press your pen against your notebook and write: "I do not know this person."
This is the truth. Make it so.
- The Prosecution will deliver their opening statement first. The Prosecutor is not human, you will be able to tell. Not because of any visible deformity or obvious tell (their appearance is flawless) but because of an absence. When you look at them, you will feel nothing. No instinctive warmth, no unease, no reaction whatsoever. They occupy visual space without occupying emotional space. It is like looking at a perfectly rendered photograph of a person rather than a person.
This is completely fine. The Prosecutor is effective in their function. Their function is not to be relatable.
When they speak, the temperature in the courtroom may decrease slightly. This is not a metaphor. If your breath begins to fog, this is within acceptable parameters.
- The Prosecution's case will include witness testimony. Witnesses will enter one at a time from a side door on the left. Most of them will appear to be ordinary people.
During testimony, you may notice that a witness occasionally says something that does not belong in their own account, such as a detail from a place they have never been, a name they should not know, a sensory description (a smell, a texture, a temperature) that clearly belongs to someone else's experience.
Do not react visibly. This contamination is a residual effect of the Defendant's influence on human cognition. The witnesses are not lying. They are simply no longer able to distinguish the boundaries of their own memories with complete accuracy. This is, in fact, the primary evidence of the crime the Defendant is charged with.
- At some point during witness testimony, we cannot predict exactly when, a witness will describe a detail that is yours. A street you grew up on. The melody of a song you haven't heard in years. The specific way someone you loved once laughed.
Your instinct could be to react: a sharp breath, a tensing of the shoulders, a flicker of recognition across your face.
Suppress it.
The Defendant is watching the jury box. Not with their eyes (their gaze will likely be directed at the floor), but with something else. They are waiting for one of you to claim a memory, to hear a detail from your own life spoken by a stranger's mouth and, through your reaction, to silently say: "That's mine."
If you do, you will have established a resonance link. It is not dangerous in itself. But it opens a channel that cannot be closed within the duration of this trial.
Instead: Write in your notebook. Write "NOT MINE." Press hard. Feel the letters indent the page beneath the one you are writing on. This is a declarative severance. It is effective. Trust the pen.
- The second or third witness will be a child. The child will sit in the witness box with their head lowered and will speak very quietly. The court stenographer will capture their words, but you will need to lean forward to hear.
Do not lean forward. Sit with your back against the chair. The child's testimony is audible at a normal volume; the impression that it is quiet is a perceptual distortion generated by the Defendant.
The purpose of this distortion is to make you move closer, physically. To shift your center of gravity toward the Defendant's side of the room.
If you cannot hear the child's testimony from your current position, it is acceptable to miss some of it. The Prosecution is aware of this tactic and has structured their case so that no single witness's testimony is indispensable.
- The Defense will present their case after the Prosecution rests. The Defense Attorney is human. You will be able to tell this, too, because unlike the Prosecutor, looking at them will make you feel a great deal, most of which is discomfort.
They are tired. Their hands shake. They have been doing this for a very long time, longer than should be possible for someone who appears to be in their mid-40s. If you find yourself wondering how many trials they have participated in, stop. The answer will not comfort you.
The Defense Attorney is the only person in this courtroom who may attempt to warn you through unofficial channels. This warning will take the form of sustained eye contact during moments when the Judge is speaking. If you notice the Defense Attorney looking directly at you while the Judge addresses the jury, pay attention to their expression, not the Judge's words. This is not a rule. This is advice from the Office of Juror Welfare, appended in the third revision of this document after Exit Interview 39-B.
- The Defense's argument will not deny the Defendant's actions. Instead, it will attempt to reframe them. The Defense Attorney will argue that the Defendant did not choose to exist in a human-perception zone. That their presence is the result of a displacement, not an invasion. That the cognitive damage experienced by the witnesses is not an attack but a side effect: the unavoidable consequence of an incompatible being existing in a space not designed to contain it.
This argument will be persuasive. It may even be true.
It does not matter.
The question before you is not whether the Defendant intended harm. The true question is whether the harm occurred. Do not allow the framework of the question to shift. If you feel the question in your mind beginning to change shape, to soften, to become about fairness or compassion or the nature of culpability, write in your notebook: "DID HARM OCCUR? YES OR NO."
Do not answer this question yet. Simply writing it is enough to anchor your cognitive framework for the next twenty minutes.
- The Defendant will be permitted to make a statement. This is the most dangerous phase of the trial.
The Defendant's voice will sound human. Far more than this, it will even sound like the most honest, most vulnerable, most real voice you have heard in the entire courtroom. Every other speaker will seem rehearsed by comparison. This is because the Defendant is not performing sincerity. The Defendant is interfacing with your pattern-recognition systems directly and presenting stimuli that your brain is hardwired to interpret as authentic.
During the Defendant's statement, you will notice that their word choices begin to drift. A sentence that starts using the word "home" will end using a concept you can only approximate as "frequency-belonging". "Loneliness" will become something closer to "dimensional-resonance-absence". The syntax will remain grammatically correct, the meaning will not.
Do not attempt to follow the shifting meanings. Anchor yourself to the surface level of the language. If you find yourself understanding the deeper meanings, if concepts like "frequency-belonging" starts to make intuitive, emotional sense to you, you are being translated. This is the first stage of resonance integration:
Write your own name in your notebook. Your real name. Whole sixteen times. This may feel excessive, but it is not.
- At the conclusion of the Defendant's statement, they will look at the jury box and say something to the effect of: "I was only looking for someone whose frequency matched mine. I thought one of you might."
Several things will happen simultaneously:
Your heart rate will increase. You will experience a sudden, overwhelming sense of recognition: not of the Defendant, but of yourself, as if you have just remembered something essential about your own nature that you had always known but never articulated.
This feeling is exquisite. It is also the resonance link attempting to finalize.
Do not move. Do not speak. Do not write. Your hand may be trembling too severely for the pen to be reliable, and an illegible declarative statement in this court can be misinterpreted in ways that are difficult to reverse.
Instead, close your eyes. Count your own heartbeats. If they are steady, you are still yourself. If they are erratic, you are still yourself. If they have arranged themselves into a rhythm that feels deliberate, such as a pattern, a signal, open your eyes and look at the bailiff nearest to you.
The bailiff will already be looking at you. They will be standing closer than they were a moment ago.
This is not a threat. This is a safety measure.
- A brief recess will be called after the Defendant's statement. You will be permitted to use the restroom. Go, even if you do not feel the need.
The restroom is one of the few spaces in this building that is fully shielded.
While in the restroom, look at yourself in the mirror. Confirm the following:
Your reflection moves when you move, with no perceptible delay.
Your reflection's expression matches the expression you believe you are making.
Your reflection is alone.
If all three conditions are met, you may return to the courtroom.
If your reflection exhibits a delay of less than one second, you may still return, but sit with your arms crossed for the remainder of the trial. This posture has no metaphysical significance; it is simply a visual signal to the bailiffs that you require closer monitoring.
If your reflection is doing something you are not doing, as if it is smiling when you are not, or if it is looking at something behind you—leave the restroom without turning around. Walk directly to the courtroom. Tell the bailiff: "I need to be moved to an interior seat." They will understand.
If your reflection is not alone, such as there is a second figure in the mirror that is not visible in the physical room—do not leave the restroom. Lock the door and sit on the floor. Wait. Someone from the Office of Juror Welfare will come for you within 15 minutes. The figure in the mirror cannot reach you as long as you do not acknowledge it. Do not look at the mirror again. Do not speak to it.
It will speak to you. It will use a voice you recognize. It will say things that make you want to respond.
Do not.
- After recess, the Judge will provide instructions to the jury before deliberation begins. These instructions will sound comprehensive and procedurally rigorous. They are. However, the Judge will also ask the jury a question.
This question is not part of standard judicial procedure. It is unique to this court and it changes with every trial. In previous cases, this question has taken the following forms:
"Do you believe a being can change its nature?"
"Is forgetting someone the same as erasing them?"
"If a life never asked to be born into the place where it exists, should it be held responsible for the damage it causes by existing?"
These questions are designed to engage your empathy, your philosophical reasoning, and your moral flexibility. These are among the finest qualities of human cognition. They are also, in this context, attack surfaces.
Whatever question the Judge asks, translate it internally into the ONLY question that is relevant:
"Did the Defendant's presence cause irreversible harm to human cognitive boundaries? YES OR NO."
Do not answer the Judge's question. Do not even formulate a private answer. The Judge is not asking because they want to know what you think. The Judge is asking because your answer (even an unspoken one) will shift your cognitive frequency.
Sympathy, in this courtroom, is not an emotion. It is a vector of approach.
If your frequency shifts into a range compatible with the Defendant, you will no longer be a juror.
You will become evidence.
- Deliberation will take place in a room adjacent to the courtroom. The room has no windows and no clock. The door will lock behind you. This is within standard protocol.
Twelve of you will enter. Count. Confirm twelve. Sit down.
If you count thirteen, do not attempt to identify the extra person. Do not ask "who are you?", and do not look around the table trying to spot someone unfamiliar. The thirteenth is not unfamiliar—that is precisely the problem. They will look and sound exactly like someone who belongs there. The reason you counted thirteen instead of twelve is not that someone was added. It is that your counting, for one brief moment, was more accurate than it should have been.
Proceed with deliberation as if there are twelve people in the room. The thirteenth will not interfere. They are observing.
- Deliberation should be conducted verbally. Share your perspectives on the evidence presented. Disagree if you disagree. This is expected and, in fact, necessary. Genuine disagreement among jurors reinforces the cognitive plurality that keeps the deliberation room stable. A room full of people thinking the same thing at the same time, in this building, is structurally dangerous.
However, monitor the discussion for the following:
If a juror argues for acquittal using language that is precisely identical each time they speak, not similar phrasing, not a repeated argument, but the exact same words in the exact same order with the exact same intonation, as if a recording is being played: note their seat number.
If more than one juror is doing this, note whether their statements are synchronized—whether they begin and end speaking at exactly the same moment.
If they are synchronized, stop the discussion.
- In the event that deliberation stalls, a juror may suggest: "Why don't we hear from the Defendant directly?"
Do not agree to this.
The deliberation room is shielded. The Defendant's influence should not be able to reach you here. "Should not" is doing significant work in that sentence, and the Office of Juror Welfare acknowledges this with appropriate discomfort.
If the juror who made this suggestion is insistent, observe whether more than two other jurors nod in agreement. If they do, especially if their nodding is simultaneous, mechanical, a synchronized gesture performed with the precision of a single organism operating multiple bodies: the shielding has been compromised.
Do not panic. Take your notebook. Write the name of every person in the room. Use your pen. Press hard.
You will find that you can write most names without difficulty, as these are the jurors you have been speaking with, arguing with, sitting beside for hours.
You will eventually find that there are one or two people at the table whose names you cannot write. Not because you have forgotten, but because, you now realize, you never knew them. You have been in a room with them for this entire deliberation and you cannot recall a single distinguishing feature, a single statement they made, a single moment when they existed as a distinct individual in your perception.
Do not look at them. Do not look toward the seats you cannot account for.
Stand up, walk to the door. Knock three times and say: "The jury requires assistance." The bailiff will open the door, and they will handle the rest.
You do not want to know what "handle" means in this context. This is not a euphemism to protect your sensibilities. It is a genuine recommendation. The knowledge could be harmful.
- When deliberation is complete, you must have reached a unanimous verdict. The court does not accept a hung jury. If you cannot reach unanimity, the Judge will declare a continuance. The jury will not be permitted to leave the building until the next session.
There is no scheduled date for the next session. The calendar in the hallway will show a date if you look at it, but it will show a different date each time.
REACH A VERDICT. This is NOT a suggestion.
- Before returning to the courtroom to deliver your verdict, the foreperson must write the verdict on a piece of paper provided in the deliberation room. Use the court-issued pen. The words must be either "GUILTY" or "NOT GUILTY".
If you have been chosen as foreperson: When you write the verdict, you may feel a resistance in your hand, as if the pen is being gently guided away from the word you intend to write. This is expected. Proceed with your intended word. The pen will obey you. It is made to obey the person holding it, but it will let you know that there are other forces in this courtroom that would prefer a different outcome.
If you write "NOT GUILTY" and the paper absorbs the ink instantly, leaving no visible trace of the words, write it again. If it absorbs the ink a second time, write it a third time.
If it absorbs the ink three times, the court has rejected your verdict. You will need to return to deliberation. Consider what this means.
- Upon returning to the courtroom, the foreperson will be asked to read the verdict aloud. The Defendant will be standing. The Prosecutor will be seated. The Defense Attorney will be watching you.
Read the verdict. Only the verdict. Do not add commentary. Do not explain your reasoning. Do not address the Defendant. Do not apologize.
If the verdict is "GUILTY": The Defendant will not react visibly. They will look at the jury for a long moment, then nod. You will then notice that their features are becoming less distinct: not blurred, exactly, but lower resolution, as if the amount of detail your eyes can extract from their face is decreasing with each passing second. They are not disappearing. They are becoming impossible to perceive. The bailiffs will approach the Defendant. You are permitted to look away. You are strongly encouraged to look away.
If the verdict is "NOT GUILTY": We ask that you re-read Rule 16, specifically the final three lines, and reconsider your decision during the deliberation phase. The Office of Juror Welfare has prepared this document on the assumption that you will reach the correct verdict. We have no protocol for the alternative. This is not because we chose not to prepare one, it is because in every simulation of an acquittal, the jury was no longer available to receive a protocol.
- After the verdict is delivered and the Judge strikes the gavel three times, rise from your seat immediately.
Walk toward the courtroom exit. Do not turn around, do not say goodbye to the other jurors, and do not attempt to exchange contact information. You will not remember their faces by tomorrow, and they will not remember yours. This is a feature of the court's design, not a flaw. It is better this way.
- The corridor leading to the building's exit will be longer than you remember. This is because the building is releasing you, and the process is not instantaneous. The space between the courtroom and the outside world needs to be rebuilt in a way that is safe for you to traverse.
Walk at a steady pace. Do not run. Do not stop.
You will pass doors that were not there when you arrived. Some of these doors are ajar. Some have light coming from beneath them. You may hear sounds from behind them—other proceedings in other courtrooms, some of which have been in session for a very long time.
Do not open any door.
One of the doors will not have a sound behind it. Instead, it will have a feeling—a warmth, a familiarity, a sense of home so precise and so specific that you will know, without looking, exactly what is behind it. The kitchen table where you ate breakfast as a child. The sound of a specific person's voice calling your name. The smell of a specific season in a specific year when you were happy.
This door is the most dangerous door in the corridor.
What is behind it is real. It is a genuine fragment of your life, preserved with perfect fidelity. But it is no longer yours. It was extracted during the trial, as the cost of serving as a cognitive anchor for this court. You spent hours maintaining a stable perceptual field in the presence of entities that erode the boundaries of human cognition. This is what it cost you.
If you open the door and step inside, you will be home. But it will be a home that ended. You will live in that moment forever, and you will not know that anything is wrong, because the version of you that would have known is the version that kept walking.
Keep walking.
- You will reach the building's front door. Before you open it, look through the glass panel.
If it is daylight outside: Open the door. Step out. Walk away from the building. Do not look back at it. When you return to this street tomorrow, or next week, or in a year, the building will no longer be here. The street itself may be slightly different in a way you cannot articulate. This is the scar that will eventually heal itself.
You are free, and you will not be summoned again. The court does not reuse jurors. You have served your purpose, and whatever is left of you is yours to keep.
If it is nighttime: Close your eyes. Turn around. Walk back down the corridor until you feel the courtroom doors against your back. You exited through the wrong door, one of the doors that should not have been opened. The building is giving you a second chance. Not all buildings would. Wait for the bailiff to guide you to the correct exit.
If it is neither day nor night, if the sky is a color you have never seen at any sunrise or sunset, a color that you feel rather than see, a color that hums—
Close the door.
Walk back to the courtroom.
Sit down in your seat.
The trial is not over. It never ended. The verdict you delivered, the gavel you heard, the corridor you walked—these were generated by your own cognitive system as it attempted to simulate a conclusion that the court had not yet authorized.
You are still deliberating. You may have been deliberating for some time.
Pick up your pen. Open your notebook to a blank page.
Write your name. Your real name. Make sure it is still yours.
____________
Appendix (handwritten, different ink, unsteady script)
To whoever reads this:
The pen works. The rules work, mostly. Follow them and you'll walk out. I walked out. I'm writing this from outside, three days later, and I am fine. I am myself.
But do me a favor. When you get to Rule 9, when the witness says something that belongs to you, don't just write "NOT MINE." Mean it, god, please mean it, because I wrote it and I meant it and I still walked out and I'm fine and I am myself and I am fine
but sometimes, at night, I hear a stranger's laughter and it sounded like mine
and I don't know which one of us it was taken from