By Eva Dias Costa in The Follies File — 09 Oct 2025

Air

After a True Farce

The hearing began at 10:07.
There was a brief delay:
someone had parked
in the magistrate’s space
and left a peach yoghurt behind.

We stood.
The judge entered sideways,
adjusting her robe
as if betrayed by it.

The clerk intoned the case number,
an incantation.
The printer jammed twice
while the facts were being read.

Names mispronounced
with catechism’s certainty.
The microphone registered dissent:
a long shriek.

We were asked to state the matter,

as if language –

The testator, eighty-seven,
signed a revised will
less than twenty-four hours before death.

The previous will
left the house to a church.

The new version
contains detailed instructions
for the storage of porcelain frogs,
designates a neighbour
sole heir,
and leaves the rest to air.

The attending physician
did not attend.

Though the surname’s spelling wanders,
the signature does not.

She was conscious,
according to the witness – the village solicitor,
who also sells kitchen tiles.

The witness and the heir
share a fence
and a fondness for trout.
Their pigs are siblings.

When asked why the change occurred,
the witness referred to ‘a moment of clarity’.
He did not clarify.

Folders appeared
nobody had requested.

A photocopy of the will
briefly stapled to a snack receipt.

One lawyer whispered, ‘Christ’
when the judge said ‘my courtroom’
for the sixth time.

We objected.
Moved; noted for the record.
She overruled us
on the grounds that we existed,
and it was nearly lunch.

I looked around.

The only thing behaving
as if it still traded in dignity
was the fire extinguisher.

The hearing ended without applause.
The public left quietly,
unsure what they had witnessed.

The docket was last seen
heading for the car park.

Somewhere, a window banged shut.
The air had left.

The judge lingered, disappointed
after such a commanding performance.

Outside, someone had stubbed a cigarette
against the national flag.
The extinguisher understood:

Up north, they tried a man
who murdered seventy-seven people.
The judges shook his hand
and did not raise their voices.

Here, we call it competence
if they keep the pages
and their patience,

as if justice –

While they raised skulls to war cries,
we wrote the codes, in Latin and dust.

The ink remembers our breath.

Now we mistake the echo
for the law.

The buildings still stand.
The floors leak words.
The record shows no damage.

It will be cited again.