the blessed retreat of the dreamless

when we left our hero, he was valiantly attempting to slay the merciless dragon of Qualliffying Exham. As it stands, the outcome is still uncertain and may be for some weeks. Nonetheless, the battle was fought; beaten and haggard, he emerged. He now spends his ever increasing doses of sunlight reading Books For Fun and sampling various wheat beers to toast the better-late-than-never arrival of spring.

And it took a few days, but he has regained that elusive state known as Sleeping Through the Night. All is looking up.

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Thank you, thank you for all your encouragement and happy thoughts. I'd also like to thank the Violent Femmes and Kraftwerk for powering me through to the end of last week. I'd like to tell you a little story about how I've been spending my time since, aside from feigning summer idleness via mid-day beer consumption.

The County of Wayne, State of Michigan, saw it fit to ask require me to serve on a jury of peers for two frighteningly young defendents charged with the shooting of an equally young man and woman. It was a thoroughly fascinating and occasionally harrowing process that threatened to bring back the sleepless nights. To send two young men to prison for 10+ years or release them for lack of evidence to, perhaps, finish the job on the victim. Not a decision to take lightly.

But that's a process story: long and drawn out and best told in the dark of a hazy bar, with whiskey softening the edges of my apprehension. No, instead I will tell two anecdotes that some how, together yet separately, make a metaphor for the whole process.

1) The jury room was filled with assorted office flotsam: piles of files, a microwave and coffemaker, various wall hangings leaning against the wall. The most conspicuous of these was a framed human target: the kind used for a firing range. The subject to be fired upon was a surly, revolver-wielding man that looked like Andy Griffith's evil twin. In a case regarding a shooting, it seemed exceptionally ill-placed for a jury that is supposed to presume innocence until proved otherwise. As to who placed it there or who originally had it in their office...I don't wish to know. I turned it around for the remainder of our stay there.

2) We found the defendants guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, but even then a little uncertainty remained. This was dispelled shortly after the verdict was read when the judge came to see us in the jury room. Unseen by we the jury, who were facing the side of the defendants, was that the alleged shooter was pretending to scratch his face while making gun signs with his hand at the victim. Any remaining doubt dissolved into relief.

What a strange, imperfect judicial process we have. So many mistakes: clear criminals going free; others spending years behind bars, falsely accused. And yet I can't help but wonder (worry?) that our system works better than most. Maybe. I hope.