In a hungered frenzy he lay upon a rock and dreamt. Steven dreamt of reality.
“What say you, council?” Said the Judge.
The council had reconvened. A stiff breeze across the plain failed to tussle their powdered wigs. They took a seat, the semi-circular table looking out of place under the sky, out in the open.
“We find,” began Jeremiah Torchwick, longtime friend of dear Steven—recently turned nemesis. “Steven St. Murphy, you are found guilty of murder. Bloody, shitty, nasty murder. Never has this council ever convened under such an onus. Never has this council…never, god, never will we,” and then Jeremiah started to cry.
The judge regarded Steven, gagged and bound in all white, sitting upon the accused’ chair with a druggy look in his eyes. At this moment Steven was playing a song in his head,
“Now you're grown, so grown, now I must say more than ever.
Go Toora Loora Toora Loo-Rye-Aye
and we can sing just like our fathers.”
“Cum on Eileen,” Steven whispered into his mouth-gag. His bobbling head was mistaken for a personal reaction to his severe indictment.
“You, murderer, are sentenced to one of two fates.” The Judge was interrupted,
“YOU COWARD. YOU FUCKING COWARD.” It was her sister. The people sitting cross-legged all around looked, and a few got up and took her away.
“See how you have aroused anger in our breasts!” Said the Judge. “You may either suffer exile or death.” And then he banged his walking stick loudly upon the table.
“Give me death.” Said Steven, who immediately took an errant rock to the head. Dim screeching came from far behind him—Ella Emma, Lucille’s sister, had apparently not been removed far enough from the proceedings.
The Judge and the Council had a quick whispering amongst themselves. No one had ever been executed in this commune.
(Although the Council, Judge, and surrounding witnesses had never legally killed a man, nor had their fathers, nor their father’s fathers, it would be improper to leave one with the impression that these were moral people. Indeed, much rambunctiousness had precluded the history placed before this trial. Steven’s father had been responsible for the whimsical schism of exactly five marriages with his “I’m-a-comin-to-rape-ya” comedy routine; in which he got up on the town bar and cracked jokes about a random couple in the community, and at every punchline punctuated his hilarity with a cackling of “but it don’t matter coz I’m-a-comin-to-rape-ya!” Furthermore Clarence the baker was having an affair with his Asiago-Garlic loaves and Belinda Montgomery couldn’t stop blowing things up. Aaron Darrow, the town doctor, frequently administered analgesics in twos--one for the doctor, and Silver Sam the Banker never let anyone know he melted down the town’s treasury into golden bullets so that he could go off and hunt vampires. Also, Melinda Farnsworth was constantly, constantly thinking about pussy.)
“You will be exiled!” Said the Judge. “But first you will have the everloving shit beaten out of you.” And at someone kicked over Steven’s chair and started beating him.
Hours later he was out on the desert, under the leaden sky, thinking about Lucille. He dreamt of his sentence.
Moments before he was hauled out of town, David the magician had stopped the mob and put something in Steven’s pocket, and then patted Steven on the shoulder as if to say “go ahead, mob, haul him out.” Which they did.
When Steven looked into his pocket he found a bean. It started to hop away.
It was a Mexican jumping bean.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_jumping_bean)
