Validity

By Conor Bowden (Because this site is pinged as where I plagiarised my assignment from)





White light burst between opening doors and pained his eyes, he looked down and away.
The muffled noise of a crowd exploded into clarity, into a roar of white noise.

Bruises burned as he was wrenched from nervous dormancy

His eyes followed the yellow line on the floor as he was pulled into the room. The clean, concrete floor it marked told little of this penultimate destination.

He risked a glance to his left. Judgement and disapproval oozed from a sea of faces.
To his right were concrete monoliths, stretching above his low gaze.

Pain shot through his back as he was thrown into a steel chair. The officers held him down like an animal. Synthetic straps bit into his wrists, pulling him to the cold metal.

A coarse, booming voice cut through the white noise of unrest.

"ORDER IN THE COURT."




She peered over the heads of those seated in front of her, worry blatantly displayed on her face.

She had winced at every shove as he had been manhandled along The Line.

Only the back of his head was visible once he had been seated. She shifted anxiously, pining for those unattainable front seats.

The silence was tense, heavy in the air. She could only sit and wait for the trial to take its course.

She could barely make out the judge atop the central pillar as he cleared his throat.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

The augmented voice was ominous and unenthusiastic. The phrase was used innumerable times each day.

“So help me, God? You’re supposed to say that, you know.”

She could hear his defiant statement, despite the distance.

“Answer the question.”

She heard no reply. Something pertaining to affirmation must have been said, for the judge rolled his eyes and moved on.

He was innocent. The thought had branded her mind and its mark remained. The evidence had not been stated, but she already knew it was concocted.

Concocted, not falsified. There had never been an unsuccessful trial when the state was involved. Evidence always lined up. Alibis, counter evidence, witnesses, nothing had taken hold against the state’s attorneys. They had the logs, the images, the data, the receipts.

They knew how everything happened, even when nothing had happened at all.



He couldn’t listen. He hadn’t searched that term. He never made that phone call. He never saved those images. He hadn’t heard these names before in his life.

But any rebuttal was met with more evidence, and the burden of truth was again on his shoulders.

It was because of his work. His gaze fell in helplessness as he made the connections.

Activism. Opposition. Truth, and evidence. Inside info, snowballing support, and corrupt authorities.

His mind’s eye saw the man clearly. The raincoat, the tie, the alleyway, and the eyes. He could feel the folder enter his hands, the label obscured between shadows and street light. He could smell the paper as he emptied it onto the desk.

The typing, the excitement, the hope, all came back to him.

He studied the worn, dirty material of his jeans as helplessness, again, washed over him.

His validity vanished with the attorney’s words on the wind. His message was now that of an outcast, a weirdo, a creep. There were obviously ulterior motives, anyone could see that now. Nothing had been genuine. He was subhuman.

No one would believe him.



She couldn’t listen. He would never do that. It was all lies. She was with him on that night, she was using the computer that afternoon. They were wrong.

She was the first one he had told. She remembers the shock. The anger.

She remembers how it had clicked. It made so much more sense. It had given the laws a reason to be.

That company couldn’t get away with it. All the money in the world couldn’t save them from the spread of information. Their actions were unforgivable. His determined voice would never leave her memory.

He had gained support. Protests, forum posts, articles, meetings. The evidence was undeniable. The documents were official. The proof was unbreakable.

But this new crime, these unfulfilled actions, their convincing evidence, and its consequences.

Had he done that? She couldn’t remember. Was she with him that night?

She couldn’t believe this.





Rehabilitation. Was this his fate? Not executed, not imprisoned. Invalidated.

He did not resist as he was lifted from the chair. The pain was numbed, thrown to the background of his mind, as he met the ground. He was again pulled by an aggressive force, dragged along.

His eyes followed the yellow line on the floor as he was pulled out of the room. The clean, concrete floor it marked told little of his ultimate destination.

Work, secrecy, risk, reward and love. All for nothing.