† SINISTER PUBLICATIONS†

BAILIFF: All rise for the Honorable Judge Harold P. Chingazos.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Good morning. Please be seated.

CLERK: Calling Case 26-CV-1982, Q versus Life.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Appearances for the record.

PLAINTIFF: Q, appearing pro se, Your Honor.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Q, you understand the implications of representing yourself?

PLAINTIFF: Correct. My previous attorney became depressed after reviewing the evidence and decided he needed to go home, hug his Chihuahua, and try to make sense of it all.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Noted. Defense?

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Life, Your Honor.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: What, life itself?

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Yes, sir.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: I’ll allow it. Mr. Q, your opening statement.

PLAINTIFF: Thank you, Your Honor.

I intend to prove that Life knowingly and recklessly misrepresented the facts to me as a child.

From an early age I was informed that everyone had a soulmate(s) and even a twin flame yet I am over here a forty five year old man with nothing to show than my four apex predators and two ankle biters.

I was also informed that destiny existed, but we all know that is all bollocks.

I was informed that hard work would always be rewarded yet all I got was more work, and more work.

I was informed that one day I would own a beautiful home with a white picket fence, a loving spouse, and a golden retriever that somehow never got sick or needed expensive surgery.

Instead…

I was bullied. I was laughed at in school, in public, anywhere I decided to show my face.

I worked terrible jobs. It was always the same old phrase, “so and so alled off, we need you to stay.”

I had terrible bosses and I never liked licking boots or brown nosing.

At one point I spent time in jail over unpaid parking tickets on a car that wasn’t even mine. Your honor, you can’t seem to fathom the angst I get just reiterating all of this.

At thirty-five years old I was making sandwiches at Subway with a sixteen year old wise ass kid as my manager.

The defense sold me Lord of the Rings and delivered a Tuesday afternoon shift filled with shitty customers, with a cringry boss, and a dumb ghost that haunted the restroom. I always hated having to clean up the ghastly remains every single day your honor. The outrage!!

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Objection.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Basis?

DEFENSE COUNSEL: The plaintiff left out several details.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Such as?

DEFENSE COUNSEL: The plaintiff also had friendships, laughter, family experiences, accomplishments, hobbies, and several excellent meals during that period. At the county jail he got a delicious sandwich with a bag of cheetos and a jalapeno pepper. He got it better than most of us and he still wants to complain?

PLAINTIFF: Those are irrelevant.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Overruled. They’re actually extremely relevant.

PLAINTIFF: Your Honor, I’d like to submit Exhibit A.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: What is Exhibit A?

PLAINTIFF: A harvest moon.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Excuse me?

PLAINTIFF: A harvest moon.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: The actual moon?

PLAINTIFF: Pictures of it.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Proceed.

PLAINTIFF: Throughout my life the defendant repeatedly exposed me to meteor showers, sunsets, lightning storms, harvest moons, star-filled skies, mountains, oceans, and other majestic phenomena. How was I not to think that life was in true beautiful and full of awe? Tell me your honor, have you not ever dreamt of the skies one late summer night?

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: And your point?

PLAINTIFF: Look at this stuff.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Looking.

PLAINTIFF: Does this look like something designed for a guy who was supposed to spend thirty years wondering if payday was next Thursday or the Thursday after?

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: …continue.

PLAINTIFF: The universe kept acting like something important was about to happen.

Every time I looked at the stars it felt like a movie trailer.

Turns out it was a screensaver on the screen of a beat up tobisha monitor.

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Mr. Q, is it true that nobody specifically told you that you were destined for greatness?

PLAINTIFF: Not directly.

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Then how did you reach that conclusion?

PLAINTIFF: Have you seen meteor showers?

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Yes.

PLAINTIFF: That’s exactly my point.

Nobody shows a kid an infinite universe and then expects him to think he’s destined to compare health insurance plans.

PLAINTIFF: Furthermore, I was informed that somewhere out there existed a perfect soulmate.

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Objection. Nobody guaranteed that.

PLAINTIFF: Every movie from 1985 to 2005 strongly implied it.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Fair point.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Mr. Q, let me ask you something.

PLAINTIFF: Yes, Your Honor.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: You claim your life lacked epic grandeur.

PLAINTIFF: Correct.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Yet you’ve survived heartbreak, financial problems, disappointment, regret, dead-end jobs, bad bosses, uncertainty, and your own questionable decision-making.

PLAINTIFF: Correct.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: And despite all of that, you’re still here.

PLAINTIFF: Also correct.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: That sounds suspiciously like the plot of a story.

PLAINTIFF: That’s different.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: How?

PLAINTIFF: In movies the music is better and the guy always gets the girl.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: After reviewing the evidence, this Court finds that Life is guilty of excessive foreshadowing.

The defendant repeatedly used sunsets, meteor showers, moonlit nights, music, dreams, hope, and youth to create the expectation that something magnificent was about to occur.

The Court also finds that the plaintiff fundamentally misunderstood the assignment.

The plaintiff believed he was promised a fairy tale.

Life only promised an experience.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Therefore, this Court rules in favor of the plaintiff.

Damages are awarded in the amount of one trillion dollars.

BAILIFF: One trillion dollars? Holy macaroni!!

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: One trillion dollars.

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Your Honor, Life does not possess one trillion dollars.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Counsel, are you telling this Court that Life has access to infinite oceans, billions of stars, countless galaxies, black holes, nebulae, harvest moons, meteor showers, and at least seventeen different species of weird-looking fish…

…but it can’t come up with one trillion dollars?

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Correct.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Frankly, that sounds like poor financial management.

DEFENSE COUNSEL: How exactly is Life supposed to pay?

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Figure it out. You’re Life.

PLAINTIFF: Thank you, Your Honor.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Don’t thank me. I expect you’ll waste the entire judgment within five years.

PLAINTIFF: On what?

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Food trucks. Questionable business ventures. Exotic hot sauces. Four dogs. Seven hobbies. Three unfinished projects. A smoker large enough to alert satellites.

PLAINTIFF: That’s speculation.

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: It’s a judicial finding.

BAILIFF: ALL RISE!

JUDGE CHINGAZOS: Before I leave, let the record reflect that this Court specifically finds Life liable for reckless emotional advertising.

Had proper warnings been provided, the plaintiff would have known that adulthood consists primarily of passwords, lower back pain, suspicious emails, and wondering what happened to the last twenty years.

Judgment for the plaintiff.

Court adjourned.

BAILIFF: The Honorable Judge Chingazos has exited the building. Everybody move along in an orderly fashion.

PLAINTIFF: I WON!

DEFENSE COUNSEL: I’ll see you on the flip side!

PLAINTIFF: Damn it!