The fiction writer stood, hand on the bible. She was called to the stand, had refused to plead the fifth.
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but… ?
She looked first at the judge, then the jury, then the court at large, crammed with the media and the public. Most had not read her book, White Lies, but they knew she had sold a million copies. The ones who had read the book did not understand the book, but they understood a million copies.
I do, she said, then: BUT – you should know: truth has little to do with facts.
She looked around the room importantly, continued.
After all, what is fact? Was it not once a seemingly indisputable fact that the earth was flat? Yes, I know, now we know it is round, but while the rest of the world is content to run in circles, I await the vision of shapes yet to be discovered. You talk of facts, grounded, infused with meaning, while I look to the night sky, connect the dotted stars, create constellations of truth – leave it to their black backdrop to intimate the one and only truth: that anything is possible, and all things true.
It is only vision and revision. If I am twenty minutes or twenty years overdue it is because my destination tarried, not that I stayed too long in any place I was before.
Would that the evidence of the prosecution’s insecurities not be so exhibited by the fact that he is balding! Would that your honor not be so literally and figuratively naked underneath your robes!
And YOU, Madame Juror, that dress does not make you look fat – from my perspective, the thin and lovely line of your waist fits between my fingers if I raise them to my eye like so.
Ah, I could go on for 800 pages – and have! – but not today. Today, I’ll let you decide the truth, the whole truth…
She looked around her once more.
Nothing but, she said.
And with that the judge allowed her to step down. As she walked back to her seat, the courtroom stood also, applauded.
The prosecution sat in his chair stone-faced, waived his closing statement. The defense attorney said nothing, but motioned for his client to stand once more, take a bow.
The jury retired.
They were not gone a full five minutes. The verdict was guilty. The judge eyed the defendant with a look that said to everyone in the room that no penalty was severe enough. Then, he seemed to soften a moment, but only a moment.
The sentence was life.
People were divided over the harshness of the penalty, the opinion columns argued back and forth for weeks, the defense attorney swore he would appeal. The fiction writer, most of all, felt it was undeserved. After all, it’s not like she was a poet or something.