Story submitted by subject m:
Part 2:
“Thank you, Your Honor,” she said, and the formality of the title startled him.
“I believe we understand each other now.”
She began to outline her argument, her tone professional, her language precise. Yet something in the air remained altered—an invisible trace of the stillness that had filled the room only moments before The rest of the hearing passed without incident. On paper, nothing unusual had happened: a few procedural questions, a polite adjournment to allow the accused more time to work on their case.
However when Judge James Hale left the bench that afternoon, he found the world slightly out of step. The corridors outside the courtroom were empty, yet the faint sound of Catherine’s voice seemed to hang there in his mind.
An echo saying “Let your thoughts settle…”
He told himself it was just fatigue. It had been a long week, a long career of listening to other people’s words. Still, there was something different about how quiet it felt now — as if the silence itself were waiting for him to fill it.
That night, at home, James tried to review his notes. He couldn’t focus. His handwriting looked strange, almost unfamiliar. He caught himself tapping his pen to a rhythm he didn’t remember hearing before: slow, deliberate, almost like the swing of that pendant.
He leaned back, closing his eyes. The courtroom light, the sound of her voice, the slow trace of motion — they played in his mind not as memory but as sensation. He hadn’t been controlled, he told himself. Just distracted.
The next morning, when he stepped into chambers, his clerk mentioned that the defendant had left a brief to be reviewed before the next session.
“She said you’d want to read it personally,” the clerk added, puzzled. “Did you tell her that?”
James hesitated. “No,” he said, too quickly. “But I’ll look it over.”
The folder was light. Inside, the first page bore no legal argument, only a single line written in careful ink:
‘Let your thoughts settle. Sometimes focus is not found. Sometimes your honor — it’s given.’
He read the line again. The words themselves weren’t remarkable, yet they held that same quiet gravity, the same calm weight as her voice. For a long moment, he sat perfectly still. The room was silent except for the faint ticking of the clock.
And then, without thinking, his gaze followed the pendulum of the second hand — back and forth, back and forth — until the edges of thought began to blur again…