California Jury Service -

You feel the collective soul of the room depart for the beach. The lawyers speak a language of objections and stipulations. Voir dire begins. The questions are gentle scalpels: Can you be fair? Do you believe in physics? Have you ever slipped? Have you ever fallen? Have you ever looked at a wet floor sign and thought, that’s a challenge ?

Outside these windows: the real California. The Pacific glinting like hammered pewter. Palm trees nodding in the Santa Ana wind. In here, time is a liquid that has been thickened to molasses. california jury service

“Group 4, to Department 23.”