The Power Of The Law

• Campbell Duff, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2009

I didn’t like driving home in the dark usually, and with the huge storm that we were experiencing I didn’t like it one little bit. The fact that I was heading back from somewhere I never should have been didn’t help much. When I pulled up to the front of the house it was thundering and there was lightning flashes every second. The wind was that strong that it was tearing branches out of the tree everywhere. I looked to the house and noticed that there weren’t any lights on; the power must be out. I quickly got my brief case and hotfooted it inside. As I got to the door I opened it and saw that in the hallway there was a shadow of a person, my wife.

“Is the power out honey” I ask, but there was no reply. Then it struck me. Something was wrong. Thoughts raced through my head, was it that I left the dog in this morning and it made a mess, or weather she was cranky for at me for being late from work or that she knew that I wasn’t at work and was having “some drinks” with my sectary, Miss Clair O’Donnell. My heart was pounding. Then the lightning flashed and I saw that she knew it wasn’t the job that had kept me out all night.

“Through all the wind and the rain I can still smell her perfume” she cried. She ran back down the hall and turned into the bedroom. She went through all the draws until she came to the pistol and pulled it out. As she turned around to come back out she saw the mirror on the wall, and she told the lady in the mirror that he wont do this again. She stormed out to the hall with the pistol out and screamed “this is the last time you do this to me you bustard”. I was terrified and I tried to grab the gun, but then it went off.

The shot echoed through the old house like when you scream in a cave. My wife was shot dead. In the struggle she had been killed.

I got rid of all the evidence that the cops could link it to me and then dialled triple zero. They showed up some minutes later and I told them that I saw Mr Stevens, our neighbour that had spent some time in jail last summer for growing marijuana. The police then took him into custody and charged him for murder.

I went to every court hearing to make sure that it was not lead to that I was the murderer. I had to make Mr Stevens take the blame. Going to jail would ruin me. So I sat and listen to the court hearings and then finally sentenced him to 15 years in jail. Seem as though I was the judge of the court.