Trial

Judge- Ticktock man. Though he is cruel by most standards, he can be trusted to not be too kind with the defendant. He can also be trusted to keep the discussion on track and be finished in a timely manner. 

Defendant- Lacie. She is placed on trial for disturbing the peace and public indecency. She comes to the story right after her display at the wedding reception.

Jurors- Harlequin. This Harlequin came to the Jury right after his jelly bean incident.

-      Tessie. She comes from her story just after the first rock hit her head during the Lottery.

-      Antigone. She comes right after Ceron sends her to the tomb.

The Tiral

Ticktock: Lacie is charged with disturbing the peace and public indecency. In my land she would be charged decently with tardiness as well, but alas that is off the table in this land.

Harlequin: [cackling] it’s called a coffee shop your royal time-stress.

Ticktock: [looking down at Harlequin with scorn] Regardless pest, we are here in Lacie’s world to take part in discussion of the presented charges.

Antigone: What, exactly, did she do wrong?

Lacie: [face rosy and covered in running makeup, tears are still fresh on her face. She is wearing the same torn dress from the wedding reception.] I just wanted to speak at my dear friends wedding. I did everything to get there, traveling so very far and preparing a heartfelt speech. She wasn’t going to let me, what could I do? [she scoffs] I would hurt her precious rating too much. 

Tessie: Now Lacie, did you not only want to speech so badly so that it would ultimately help your rating?

Lacie: No!

Ticktock: [hisses] lying!

Lacie: [eyes wide and watering] Okay, well, yes. I mean, sort of bu-

Antigone: She fell from 4.2 to nothing in just a day, surly she can’t be completely to blame?

Ticktock: She showed up late to an event she was not invited to any longer. She held a knife to anyone whom got too close during her ‘speech’.

Antigone: She was trying to avoid being apprehended for simply sharing her love of a friend who tried to remove her because of a rating! If she had not obtained the double damage at the airport then nothing else would have mattered!

Tessie: If she had simply followed the rules then she would not be in this mess.

Harlequin: You mean pointless punctuality? Or mindless rating for the sake of numbers? Lacie was doomed from the start; her chaos brought real humanity to lacking humans.  

Antigone: Pardon me Tessie, but your own actions seem to follow Lacie’s a bit, would you say?

Tessie: Well! I haven’t a clue what you mean!

Harlequin: [showers Tessie in about 258 jelly beans] You tried to give your family to death over yourself!

*jelly beans bounce off the tables and into cups of coffee, Tessie looks confused and mortified at once.*

Antigone: [erupts in laughter]

Ticktock: [rage planted clearly on his face] HARLEQUIN! ENOUGH WITH THE JEALLY BEANS! Focus! We should remain timely so that I can deal with you soon!

Lacie: oh my, are those jelly beans?

Antigone: [pops a few jelly beans in her mouth] Lacie’s only crime is following blindly to an outrageous system.

Harlequin: Even the people present for Lacie’s outburst began to feel sorry for her when she made them laugh. It was not until she cursed that they really started to knock her down. She is a victim here! Her ‘friend’ only wanted her around to up her own rating, while the entire time she told Lacie she wanted her around because Lacie was her oldest friend. How can you charge her with disturbing the peace when she was trying to right a wrong!?

Tessie: She held a knife to people, regardless of the reason that is disruptive and dangerous, to say the least!

Harlequin: [begins to fill a few coffee cups with the remaining jelly beans, then places them in front of Antigone and himself for a light snack]

Lacie: [holds out hand and swipes as if to give Tessie a rating]

Ticktock: Nice try.

Lacie: [sighs, looking defeated] Look, that rating is not just popularity. It shapes your entire life. I just wanted to move into a better apartment and move on and then Nessie told me she really wanted me as her real friend and I did everything I could to make that happen. Maybe I got a little crazy, but once my rating dropped my life was disappearing. [She begins to cry] Just a few good ratings from those upper 4s would have saved me..

Harlequin: How can you blame someone for falling into the trap their society creates? [eyeing the Ticktock man]

 Antigone: And the false humanity Nessie presented… “It is my nature to join in love, not hate.” (Sophocles Line 117)

Tessie: She’s dangerous! I would never have someone so capable of violence in the village!

Antigone: Unless it happens to be June…

Harlequin: [singing] Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon! (Jackson paragraph 32)

Ticktock: Tessie, though I take payment for tardiness, you have claimed many with stones.

Lacie: with stones? And I am at fault?

Tessie: it’s not fair! The Lottery is tradition! Lacie broke the rules and went against tradition! Everyone knows that means trouble! We use the same box year after year and lose more people year after year just for the sake of it!

Harlequin: Your Lottery is unjust and you are aware! There is talk of it ending and you found it fair until the stones came after you!

Antigone: We must stand for what is just, no matter the cost Tessie.

Tessie: Then what is just here?

Ticktock: Okay Jurors, there have been many good points stated, let us stay timely and get on with discussing them. Her first charge is disturbing the peace. This charge is presented because she snuck into the wedding reception, where she was then uninvited, persisted to give an incoherent speech that the newlyweds did not want. She yelled, cussed, told a deep secret about Nessie and held a knife to keep people away during this speech as well.

Antigone: I think we should hear Lacie’s reasoning before we discuss this.

[Harlequin agrees immediately, eating a few jelly beans as if perfectly comfortable. Tessie sips her coffee, and then agrees reluctantly.] 

Ticktock: Because you all agree, I will allow it.

Lacie: [Antigone gives Lacie a cup of water and a cup of jelly beans with a wink. Lacie takes a sip of water and begins with a heavy sigh] Well, okay. After losing so much all in a matter of hours, just to get to that stupid wedding, I just had to do it. At that point I had given up nearly everything to get there; the journey had cost me my entire rating, so I just had to. When Nessie called to ‘uninvite’ me it was not simply giving up getting a better rating, it would have been giving up what I thought was a real friendship, and then it turned into my only chance to have any sort of rating at all. I don’t remember much of the speech. It was all just a blur and I kept trying to go back to what I practiced but then I just got so upset about how Nessie treated me that I threw out that secret about her. None of it was right, but even though I held the knife I wouldn’t have hurt anyone.

Tessie: But this is not a case of whether you would hurt someone or not. Our question is did you disturbed the peace or not and you clearly did.

Antigone: She was clearly in distress Tessie. How can you condemn her for acting out in a moment of extreme upset? Haven’t you acted differently when you became distressed?

[Harlequin says “Yes!” at the same moment Tessie says “Of course not!” and they glare at one another]

Harlequin: Oh come on! Tessie, the moment you saw your husband had the paper you claimed “It wasn’t fair!” and the stones were not even coming for you yet! (Jackson paragraph 45)

Tessie: That was not acting out! I was defending my family.

Antigone: What about when you said, “Make them take their chance!” in regards to Don and Eva? (Jackson paragraph 49)

Tessie:[She is hesitant at first to answer.] Well, I- I just thought it would be fair to make them draw too. Defending means doing what is right and I thought that would be fair.

Harlequin: I think you are lying. You claimed it was not fair as soon as your husband drew the unfortunate paper, not just because you couldn’t put your eldest daughter in the drawing for death too. You went along just fine with the Lottery until your family was singled out Tessie. It was not until then that you said something different.

Tessie: Everyone else did too! They would have acted the same!

Antigone: Actually, that is not true. Mr. and Mrs. Adams spoke up during the initial drawing. They were talking to Old Man Warner. Mr. Adams said, “They do say…that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the Lottery.” (Jackson paragraph 30) Mrs. Adam said, “Some places have already quit lotteries.” (Jackson paragraph 33)

Tessie: They may have spoken mildly against it but that is far from acting against it.

Harlequin: This is true, however you cannot say that everyone acted as you did. You acted out in distress Tessie, just as others in your village would have and just as Lacie did.

Tessie: You are correct, I suppose. I didn’t want to die.

Lacie: No one wants to die as they look death in the face Tessie.

Antigone: [Shrugs and eats a few jelly beans casually] It’s not so scary when you are fighting for what is just.

Harlequin: I have a question for Lacie.

[The Ticktock man has been lost in thought over where the Harlequin has stored all these jelly beans when one, suddenly, nicks his ear. He looks down, enraged, at the jurors, until he realizes they are all staring at him for something. The Harlequin repeats himself.]

Ticktock: Proceed pest.

[Harlequin snickers at the Ticktock man, then reaches for a drink of water to compose himself.]

Harlequin: Lacie, you have subscribed to the rating sort of society all your life. Even at the beginning of your faithful day your rating was very important to you. But then, as the day wore on, you grew less and less concerned with what hits your rating took. Instead you were simply more worried about getting to the wedding, no matter the costs. Why?

Lacie: Well, rating was just normal, like the punctually in your land *jesters toward Harlequin* and the Lottery in yours *jesters toward Tessie*. I never saw anything wrong with it, but then again I have always had a decent rating. Once I got down to the 2s it really just did not matter anymore. I could try and make a good impression on the higher 4s and have some sort of life left, or I could give up after trying so hard.

Antigone: Did it have nothing to do with your ‘friendship’ with Nessie?

Lacie: Well, it did hurt. But she has always kept me around to make herself look better. It took just me till then to realize it.

Tessie: My friend abandoned me too. She was one of the first to through stones before I ended up here. At first I was heartbroken, but it’s tradition. I would have done the same. Would you have done the same to Nessie?

Lacie: Maybe. I would like to say no, but had I been the one with a 4.6 and a chance to make it higher I cannot say I would not have taken it. The tradition of the ratings is something we are born into and it grows into who we become.

Harlequin: It is like the upper class of my world they think of me as a “menace; a heretic; a rebel; a disgrace; a peril.” ( Ellison paragraph 5) They think of me that way because I disrupt their schedule, but they wouldn’t care so much if tradition had not made it such a part of life. If they are late it takes time off of their lives.

Ticktock: Punctuality upholds the structure of every sector of our society. People have to be punished if they are not punctual. 

Harlequin: That is the society you created though. It would not be the same if you did not take people’s lives.

Ticktock: I suppose I have to agree, that is the reason I control them so closely.  Alright, have the jurors agreed on the first charge?

[ The jurors look around at one another. Tessie eyes the cups of jelly beans. Antigone notices and slides a cup of them to her, smiling.]

Antigone: I think she cannot be to blame for her moment of distress. No one was hurt.

[Tessie chews a few jelly beans, looking deep in thought]

Harlequin: I agree. While she did interrupt the reception, no one was hurt. She was in great distress.

Tessie: [takes a sip of water] I think I have to agree. She should not be charged.

Ticktock: Okay, it is decided then. Now, on to the second charge of public indecency.

[Lacie looks down at her shredded dress in confusion, then back at the jurors with a blushing face.]

Lacie: oh, uh, oops…

[Antigone and Harlequin erupt in laughter.]

Tessie: [hands Lacie her sweater] Here you go Lacie.

Harlequin: Do we all agree on this one?

Antigone: I believe we do, right Tessie?

Tessie: Now that she is covered, yes. She should not be charged with this either.

Ticktock: Good. Lacie, you are found not guilty on all charges. Now, let’s go deal with this pest Harlequin!

Harlequin: You can try!

[Jelly beans rain down on Ticktock, Harlequin cackles in glee with the rest of the jurors and runs from the coffee shop]