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+	The characters in the following are real; they are not paid actors. They have agreed to waive their legal rights to settle their case here in the Reader’s Court.
+
+The Lounge is a poorly lit affair with black upholstery trimmed in dark mohangy, thick wooden double doors seal out the light of day and only to wall lamps behind the bar illuminate the scene. Two women stand in the entryway adjusting their eyes to darkness. Eventually they head over to the bar and pull out two stools. April is in her late forties, red hair and thick skin that has weathered more than it’s share of troubles. She is attractive but pales next to the girl with her who is likely still a teenager and possibly an aspiring model or actress, either way she looks the part. In her mind words like ‘why’ keep running over and over on a loop. The defense attorney is tending bar and the judge is an old woman with a voicebox sitting in the corner both croaking for more gin and tonic. Around the corner in the back room there are four enormous cockroaches playing pool in the dark and talking in unintelligible chirps and squeaks.
+They have been over this same ground several times, it is beginning to irritate her, no she checks herself, not beginning to, it is irritating her. She tries to force him out of her mind. 
+The defense objects but is overruled.
+	“Gimlet martini please, and could you use fresh limes? Thank you.” She sets her bag on the stool next to her, takes out her phone lays it on the bar and turns to look at April. The girl is not the type to have a drink at eleven in the morning on your average day, but today is not your average day. No today is trial day, it didn’t start out that way but then he called an announced he was leaving. She had hung up the phone in tears and said aloud that she needed a drink. April said she knew a place.
+April orders a scotch. 
+	In the grand jury hearing of late night sorrow the charges brought against the defense included emotional abandonment, weakness, lack of love and acting crazy. The girls contention is that the defendant, after two years of long distance relationship suddenly picked up and moved a thousand miles to be with her and then promptly got depressed and has decided to leave. The charge of crazy has been amended to inconsistent behavior. Earlier the girl’s lover had introduced a motion for dismissal on the grounds of temporary insanity, but much to the surprise of this reporter, the motion was denied. 
+	“It’s a bad sign when you have to have a drink before you can deal with the person you’re supposed to love, isn’t it?” 
+	“Uhm, yes dear, actually it’s a sign you already ignored some bad signs.” April takes a belt of scotch and sighs heavily.
+	“But I love him… at least I love who I thought he was, but ever since he moved to the city and got depressed it like I don’t even know him… now I feel like every time I think of him there is this burden on my shoulders… he’s become something I have to deal with…” The girls voice alternates between confusion and bitterness.
+	“You say he’s having a nervous breakdown?” April swirls the scotch in her highball glass watching the syrup trickle back down the sides.
+	“He says he’s having a nervous breakdown, I don’t know… I try to sympathize with him because I’ve been there; I had a nervous breakdown several years ago and couldn’t get out of bed for a month, but I got over it. I dealt with it and I moved on. I don’t know if I can stand by and watch him go through that, it hurts too much and it’s not where I am in life right now. Is that cruel? Am I being insensitive?”
+	“Darling you have to watch out for yourself, you have to do what you have to do. I can’t tell you what that is and neither can he.”
+	The defense objects to this inane abstraction on the grounds that always living solely for yourself leaves you bitter and alone. While being your own person is necessary and healthy so is being emotionally supportive to those around you.
+	Motion is overruled. Let’s hear this out.
+	“He doesn’t try to tell me what to do. At least not in any authoritarian kind of way, but he can be terribly passive aggressive at times, like the other night when you and I were out late and I didn’t have chance to call? I got home around midnight and he came down to let me in because we don’t have a buzzer… is there a hug at the door? A kiss? An 'I missed you'? No, but there’s a whole lot of pissed off and where the hell were you?
+	“Oh honey that’s nothing you need to come home to after a twelve hour day…” April shakes her head with a superiority that the defense objects to.
+	Sustained. April will limit herself to the story without resorting to unwarrented haughtiness.
+	“But wait it gets worse. When we get upstairs he tells me ‘he can see,’ he says, ‘that I don’t have time for him’ and he is ‘obviously not a priority’ in my life. And then its right back to the same old shit… he’s sorry, he’s depressed, its not me, he doesn’t know why he just is, he doesn’t know what to do, the city is getting to him, he thinks he should be going…”
+	“Sounds like you need to spend some time apart.”
+	“Well I guess we are if he’s going back down to his place in North Carolina tomorrow.”
+	The Judge asks if the prosecution has considered going with him.
+	“I have a life here, I like it here I’m not going to just pick up and leave for him. I enjoy my life, stressful and hectic though it may be, I believe in what I’m doing and I want to get this company off the ground.”
+	“Good I’m glad you’re happy here.” April smiles at her.
+	“Hold on a minute, I didn’t say I was happy”
+“Okay well I’m glad you like what we’re doing because its only going to get better. And easier. Once we get a space and get settled in things will be much easier. One would like to hope that a year from now we could be working about half as much and have things running smoothly enough that the income would be the same.”
+“My father always said the first year of business is the hardest. Speaking of which I’d like you to meet him, I think the two of you would hit it off.”
+The Judge reminds the prosecution that there is a trial in progress.
+The girls cell phone vibrates and skates across the bar bumping against her martini glass and careening toward the floor. She grabs it at the last second.
+“Its him. He’s going to want to know how to get here, hold on a second… Yes? Hi hon, okay take the F to 14th street come out on the northwest corner and walk to 11th… okay well whatever corner you come out on head downtown, against traffic on 6th and the lounge is between 11th and 10th. Okay we’ll see you in a bit. Yes she’s here. Honey don’t start. Okay I’ll see you in a bit.” She hangs up shaking her head. “He doesn’t even know his way around the city yet and he already hates it.” She is silent for a while and then says, “I want him to be here with me more than anything, but not if he’s miserable, not if he doesn’t want to.”
+The defense would like to introduce exhibit A which is a diagram of my clients previous affairs showing the reasoning behind his decision to leave them and the differences between that and the current situation under review. As you can see in the past my client has no longer had feeling for his partner and done the right thing in terminating the relationship. We further submit that while the defendant loves the prosecution very much he is not emotionally prepared for life in the city. Having recently been living in a small rural town the culture shock combined dissatisfaction with his employment and being unaccustomed to the dark, cold depression of winter my client feels it best if he leave and return at a later date. The defense would like to further point out that as the prosecution has already testified there had been no attempt on her part to meet my client half way. He picked up and left his entire life for her and now that he is asking for a little time to get himself in order the prosecution shows no understanding of his needs.
+Exhibit accepted please proceed.
+“I want him to do whatever he needs to do just like I need to do what I need to do, but I can’t go back to this long distance thing. I can’t keep living for the times we’re together and putting my life on hold the rest of the time. It makes me miserable. I don’t want to be miserable anymore than he does.” The girl takes a gentle sip of her gimlet.
+“Isn’t it supposed to be for better or for worse…” April for once has something intelligent to say.
+“Ya well we’re not married. Neither one of us believes in that sort of thing. I want him to be happy and I want to do what makes me happy and when he leaves of course I’ll cry, it will hurt more than anything in the world and I’ll have to seal off my heart if I’m going to carry on, but if this is what he needs to do then so be it. I just want him to be happy and he is clearly not happy here right now.”
+“So what are you two going to do?” April asks and then in the next breath orders another scotch.
+“What do you mean? I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m going to go on with my life.”
+“Well if he leaves are you going to see other people? I know this guy, I can give you the number, if you just want some sex—I mean good sex—let me know he’s very nice and…
+‘April this isn’t about sex.” The girl looks askance with indignation.
+“Everything is about sex.”
+“Maybe for you.”
+Judge holds April in contempt of court fining her two years off her life. Please light the cigarette…
+“That’s not an issue for me, if I met someone I found interesting I would tell him and he would understand, but that’s not where I’m at right now. The issue is him getting himself together and figuring out what makes him happy because it’s obviously going to take more than just being with me.”
+“I take it he’s not going to work for us anymore?”
+"No it's not his cup of tea. He said to tell you he’s sorry.”
+“He’s sorry? To hell with that I took him on because you recommended him and he’s just going to walk out on that now? He’s sorry. You’re damn right he’s sorry and he’s going to be a lot sorrier when I get done with him.”
+“April please…”
+“No this is none of your affair…”
+The defense would like to at this time submit a list of names of people that April has screwed over in business deals in the past detailing the obligations she has walked out on and people who considered her a friend, but she screwed over for personal gain. The two semis containing the documents are parked out back. The defense would like to further ask why, if April’s name is so tainted that she has to use a different one now, is she suddenly indignant toward my client for doing the very thing that she herself has made a career out of doing?
+“This is outrageous, I will not sit here and be lecture by some backwoods hick half my age. I am a grown woman, I am good at what I do; I have had the misfortune of working with a number of psychopaths in my life and have had to do what the situation necessitated… this is outrageous.”
+The defense rests against April. You may step down.
+“Hold on now if your client wants to continue to have a relationship with the girl and I work with her there will be interaction between your client and myself. Anything he does or says to me will only push her farther away from him.”
+The defense recognizes this situation and thus humbly proffers his greatest apologies and returns all monies received as a good faith measure of his intentions. The ball is in your court April.
+The girl looks at her exasperated, “all right April I can’t deal with this right now, lets just drop it. You and I get along, we’re the ones that have to and for now we’ll leave it at that.”
+Objection your honor the prosecution is trying to stack the deck against my client. 
+Overruled. The prosecution has already expressed her desire to ‘do what she needs to do’ and in this situation I see her point. The defense will bring nothing further against April.
+Damn bitch.
+Excuse me?
+Nothing your honor.
+“I feel bad for giving him the job. I didn’t really want to, but he insisted, he told me he would come up if I could get him work and when I mentioned the design job he said he wanted to do it. He was really excited about it at first, but then he didn’t feel comfortable with it, he felt like he wasn’t any good at it. That’s fine but I wish he wasn’t just picking up and walking out on it. He’s just going to get in his car and drive away…”
+“Maybe you did too much. Didn’t you say that no one could make anyone else happy? Maybe you shouldn’t have done anything?” April has already plowed through her second scotch and spins her glass on the bar waiting for a refill.
+“But then he wouldn’t have come up at all. He asked me to… he begged me to and I asked him over and over, ‘are you sure this is what you want?’ He said yes he said he just wanted to be with me, he said that was all that mattered. Now he’s leaving… I guess I’m not all that mattered—so how am I supposed to feel?’
+The girl pushes her drink away and puts her head in her hands crying. 
+The prosecution rests.
+The Judge retires to her chamber and returns as the girl dries her eyes and orders another drink. The enormous cockroaches slip out unnoticed.
+On the charge of emotional abandonment I find the defendant guilty. On the charge of inconsistent behavior and emotional weakness in the face of adversity I find the defendant guilty. On the charge of lack of love I find the defendant not guilty.
+The defense appeals the decision. 
+Motion is denied. Please advise your client to move on with his life and put this behind him.
+Case dismissed.
+
+Outside in the harsh glare of January sun your faithful reporter will attempt to get a statement from both sides. Miss? Excuse me, Miss? Now the Judge found in your favor on two counts how do you feel about that. 
+“I can’t talk about it, I can’t deal with it right now I’m in too much pain. I think I’m going to have to send my heart on vacation. Excuse me.’
+And there you have it folks. Now here comes the defense attorney. Sir your client was not present for the proceedings why is that?
+My client is an emotional wreck and needs to get his life together.
+And the charges he was found guilt on?
+My client takes full responsibility for his actions and harbors no bitterness toward the prosecution. He would like a second chance but as you heard our motion was denied so my client will move on with his life. Just like you or I, but know this, he looks straight into the camera, nothing in life is easy, people make mistakes and my client deserves the same forgiveness that all of us deserve.