Nii Adumuah Dowuona

"All rise, court is in session," announces the court announcer.

Why at all am I here? I have been hauled before a court for a crime that I never committed. But the essence of the courts, I still believe, is to establish whether one was guilty of a crime or not. As I ponder over this I remember that people have been jailed and are languishing in jails over the globe for crimes they never committed. Call them victims of circumstances and you will not be too far from right.

"Judge Andrew Williams presiding," the court announcer continues. "Case 14778, in the matter of the people versus Frank Mensah."

Why do I feel like a carcass about to be ravaged by crows? All around me are men in black coats with white wigs to match. They are the crows and I the carcass, because I had been accused of a crime for the simple reason that I happened to be in the wrong place at the right time or the right place at the wrong time.

I thought the normal cliché was 'innocent until proven guilty' but in my case I guess it’s been the exact opposite as per the treatment I had gotten from lawyers and investigators. I mean how in the world could someone who was supposed to be defending me, ask me to plead guilty so the judge could be lenient with me. Maybe, just maybe I should have trained to be a lawyer. But no, pressure from quarters that I could not ignore impressed “moi” to be a doctor. Yes I was brilliant in school and all but medicine was not my destiny. I had felt that from the day when in Form Two, try as I might I still got a chemical equation wrong. Frankly if I could not compose simple salt, then what was the point. Maybe there and then I should have run from chemistry and science as far and as fast as I could. But who was I, at that time, to ignore pressures that were coming from all sorts of places, concerning future financial prospects, respect from society, from family and all.

**
It was a dark Wednesday night. I had attended a karaoke that was a disaster so far as a drunk skunk as I was tried to sing, of all the songs in the world, a Michael Jackson number. But who could blame me? When you are in stupor you believe everything is possible including healing the world.

About a few meters from my house, after what seemed a long journey of having to order my drunken steps. She was a beauty, lying before me even in a supine position. I was attracted by two things; first her striking beauty even at the point of death and secondly an urge to help a fellow human in distress. You could call her the damsel in distress and me the prince charming with the ‘kiss of life’.

Nii Adumuah Dowuona
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Author's note: [This piece] is a part of a story that I am working on now, entitled "Justice".