16/08/1988. Day Six Thousand Five Hundred and Seventy Nine.
"Why are boys so into sports?", Vary's asked as she pulled the empty chair adjacent to teenage Gregor, and sat down.
"I don't know", he replied, flipping through a sports magazine that occupies his recreational break, "why are girls so into fairy tales?", he returned.
"Because", she said, "I'm not sure, but we often think about love so much"
"We fantasise about it, on top of that fairy tales are magical"
"Do girls still fantasise about love even after they have found it?", asked Gregor getting curious.
"Of course we do", she replied, blushing, "I don't know much about it, but love is an endless story, it continues until the day we die"
"Or even after we've died"
"Take Cinderella's story", went on Vary's, "the story does not not end because the prince found the women to whom the shoe fits"
"It ends because for the rest of the prince's life, Cinderella's shoe will always fit"
"I don't know if that makes any sense though", she added.
"No", said Gregor, "I completely understood what you just said", he clarified and put down his magazine.
"It's an interesting take, truly is the first time I hear someone say something like that"
The compliment had her smiling across the ears, "happy to impress you", she said, tucking his arm with hers.
"You have no idea, how often you impress me", he admitted, fully looking at her for the first time since the conversation began, "but...if only you were pretty, Vary's, if only you looked like Tatiana", Tretone revealed, "oh Tatiana, look what you've done to me"
"The shoe must fit, each day of the week for the rest of his life", he repeated, "well, is that even possible?"
17/08/1988. Day Six Thousand Five Hundred and Eighty.
"Yo, Gregor boy", said some faintly blurred face in a group of greater blurry faces.
"What's going on with your buddy Chase and that Tatty chick?"
"I don't know", Gregor replied mildly, "why do you ask?"
"Surely you're not blind right?", he asked laughing, while encouraging his group to laugh along, "Or wait, I just remembered who you're dating"
"Damn. This dude is hella blind"
"Hahaha", they laughed some more to Gregor's disdain.
"But seriously, though, aren't you worried? Your friend is slowly leaving you behind in everything", he said.
"Leave me alone man, I ain't bothering you"
"If Vary's was sitting with you, no one would be bothering you"
"Hahaha", they laughed and continued to do so while walking away and kept looking back to steal a glance off him when the distance allowed it.
"What imbeciles", Tretone said once all chatter and giggles fizzled out.
It took a moment for it to speak up again, "if Chase pulls it off, that's what my life is going to be like, everyone will start and stay comparing us, out loud or in their heads, if we were to ever do a double date, people will compare, even if we don't do a double date, or chill together, people will still compare, and I'll be the laughing stock amongst the gents, they'll only be more humiliation coming my way, I just can't take it"
"Cinderella's shoe does not fit"
18/08/1988. Day Six Thousand Five Hundred and Eighty One.
"Hey", Chase said, "What was it you wanted to tell me?"
Gregor, who looked grim, dejected, and unresponsive, took a while to reply, knowing something was wrong, Chase patiently waited and sobered his enthusiasm.
"Vary's and I broke up", Gregor informed to the bewilderment of his closest friend.
"And pause", Panteku ordered.
"Vary's", the prosecutor said, "you clearly are an important witness"
"Rise before the court"
In the same row as a now distraught looking Chase, was Vary's. She sat one seat away from him, in the middle of them is Tatiana. Staring on aimlessly.
Vary's stretched to height at the speed of turtles, while her heart raced the hare. Yet she remains calm, the power of the court would have prevented her from acting otherwise.
"You are free to speak", commanded the Panteku, "What was your relationship to the accused during his days of breath?"
She cleared her throat once more, the results of which amounted to nothing, "We were…initially…we were classmates", she answered.
"Then friends", she said, "then partners", she said, "then friends", she said, "then classmates", she said, "and then strangers", she said.
"That was the cycle of our relationship"
"Strangers?", questioned Panteku, for no apparent reason.
"Yes", she replied, "by the time of his passing, it had been…seventeen years or so since we last spoke"
"And I only found out about it half a year later"
"Hmm. I see", said Panteku, "why did he break up with you?"
"I'm sure you already know"
Panteku remained stern and unimpressed.
"But...he just said we weren't compatible"
"Earlier", said Panteku, "I had paused Cretone, and asked everyone to remember a particular date"
"August, thirteenth, nineteen eighty eight", she repeated, "his eighteenth birthday"
"Yes!", exclaimed Panteku.
"I know what I said, but I highlighted the date so you could take note of it", it confessed.
"Please tell me why?"
"It was the day he learnt of Tatiana's interest in his friend", she dryly replied.
"And when did you guys break up?"
"August seventeenth, nineteen eighty eight, five days later"
"Well, someone has been paying attention", Panteku said proudly.
"So now, tell me the real reason y'all broke up?"
"Not what he told you, the actual reason"
"With all due respect, that's for the accused to answer", Vary's replied bitterly.
"Fair enough, you're right", it exclaimed pacing back to the subject, "why'd you do it, homeboy?"
"Did you not like her?"
"…I did…"
"So, why'd you do it, homeboy?"
"Because, because, we were not compatible"
Panteku grinned at his reply, "remember earlier when I mentioned your acts of the night?", it asked.
"You must have thought I was merely referring to the things you've done behind someone's back, or perhaps your browser history must have come to mind", it giggles like a child.
"Yes, yes, I meant those too"
"But, by acts of the night"
"I mostly mean the face one keeps within, the motifs one never sings about"
"Unlike Cretone, you cannot see Tretone", it pointed out, "no one in this room can see it either"
"No one but you"
"You can feel it. Tretone syncs with the heartbeat of the accused"
"So, whenever Cretone replays an event, Tretone, relays the rhythms of your heartbeat during said event, and since it has blended with the eye"
"You, sir, have not only been reliving both your memories and your emotions"
"I did that as a recall message, a recall to your jealousy, your pride, your envy, your anger, your lust"
"I want you to recall...your mortal sins"
"How easily you engaged with the seven"
"How often you disobeyed the ten commandments of the holy stone"
"Thou shalt not desire thy neighbour's house, or his slaves, or his animals, or anything of thy neighbour"
"How bad it is to envy a neighbour, how worse of you to envy your friend?"
"You asked Tatiana out in ninth study?"
"Yes"
"But only made that bet with Chase in twelfth study?"
"Yes"
"Why wait three years?"
"I…I don't know"
"I'll tell you why", said Panteku, "first September nineteen eighty seven", it remarked.
"Was the day, your friend, took up the nickname, Reach, after winning his race"
"A nickname you came up with"
"Chase, no Reach rather", it teased, "went on to win more races, and would wound up using the nickname more often, even for little things"
"That was in eleventh study, by twelfth study Chase reached his way into a scholarship"
"And that's when you remembered an incident that you had long put behind you"
"Tatiana's rejection"
"Under the pretext of a bet, you motioned to tame the wings of your friend"
"At that point you felt inferior to him and thus lured him into what you thought would have been certain rejection"
"If Chase could get rejected by Tatiana you'd somehow feel better of your own loses"
"But"
"Instead of humbling him, you humbled yourself"
There was a sudden round of applause throughout the court, shaking the room off its' focus on Panteku's grill of the homeless man. To the source of the applauds.