literature

Reporting for Duty

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There wasn't a lot to look at, Ginny Sullivan decided, gazing around at the hallway. Had the hallway been more tastefully done she would have said that the designer's favorite color was brown, but as it was, Ginny doubted a designer was involved in the choice of décor at all. More likely, the state bought whatever paint was on sale and said it matched. The ending result was very beige—dull, overworked, and overused. It was not a particularly uplifting color.
Had Ginny Sullivan redone the hallway she would have made it orange. No one had orange walls because old people found them too bright. That would at least make the hallway a little more original.
And it really ought to be more original, Ginny thought. She had been sitting there for nearly a half hour, and there was nothing much to do but stare at the walls. Others were on the benches near her, some reading books, others dozing with their head tilted to one side, but only she was really taking in her surroundings.
Ginny looked down at the piece of paper in her hand, which had begun perfectly unharmed before her half hour wait. It was bent in places now and had a slight curl on the end from where she'd wound it around her finger to pass the time. The damage did not change what it said, though, and it did not change what it was. Ginny had been summoned for jury duty.
For a while Ginny had been so focused on mentally changing the color scheme that she hadn't noticed all the people filling the seats around her. Now where there had been empty chairs, other potential jurors sat waiting like her. Some were nervous, some simply tired, but most carried the same irritated expression. Like Ginny, they all thought they were too important to waste their time with jury duty.
  A very small woman came down the hall, her pale blue eyes scanning the benches for an open seat. She was old, and wrinkled, and had short gray hair that Ginny could tell was a cut chosen simply for easy maintenance. The woman was barely five feet tall, and Ginny could have towered over her if she stood. But Ginny did not stand, she simply averted her eyes from the woman and sneakily let her brown hair fall over that half of her face.
It was clear very quickly that there were no seats left, but a middle aged man to Ginny's right eventually got to his feet and offered the woman a seat. The woman smiled and thanked him, and though she could have imagined it, Ginny was sure that the woman gave her a suspicious look.
A middle-aged woman was walking towards them, a horrible flowered dress that ought to have only been worn on Easter swishing to either side with each step. From the way she stood there importantly it was clear she was in charge and that she liked being in charge. Unlike most authority figures she did not introduce herself, just started ordering them around. Ginny decided to nickname her the Bossy Lady. The Bossy Lady instructed the jurors to move into the courtroom, frowning in an eternally squinted way at them all.
Even though she'd been waiting longest, Ginny was one of the last people in. She saw one open seat near the door, and practically pushing people out of the way to get to it, she slid into her victory spot. The unlucky jurors behind her had to file to the front of the room to sit in the official jury box where they would endure the scrutiny of everyone.
Once everyone was inside they sat and watched a movie. It was long, and boring, and to be completely honest, Ginny ignored more than half of it. When the video ended she tried to remember anything from it, especially the truly important information like how to get her parking reimbursed, but it was all a blank. She figured that was okay, though. She didn't plan to make it on the jury anyway.
They waited for the Bossy Lady to return with further instructions, but it was apparent very quickly that it would be a long wait. Nearly twenty minutes passed as they sat there, and with even duller walls than the hallway surrounding her, Ginny had nothing to do. Almost involuntarily she started listening to the conversations of others, not eager to start one of her own.
"I've been summoned twice in three years," a man complained, sighing heavily as he seemed to grasp the misery of his situation. "I served twice before that, too."
"It's my first time," a cute teenage boy replied, smiling nervously. "I'll be happy to slide in, answer some questions, and slide out." Ginny stared at the boy, sizing him up. He was about her age, well groomed, seemed well spoken enough. Perhaps she'd pass the time trying to flirt with him if she could get a seat nearer to him.
"I just want out of it," a grumpy woman said fussily from behind Ginny. The older man next to her nodded his agreement, his handlebar mustache twitching with a frown.
"It's ridiculous," a younger woman said from ahead of Ginny. "Why are we still sitting here? Where did that woman go anyway?"
"If you really want out of jury duty, just pretend you're racist," a pudgy man said, nudging the girl next to him. "That'll get you kicked off for sure."
"What about you, dear?"
It took Ginny a moment to realize someone was talking to her. She looked over, and then down, to see the small, old woman from before sitting next to her. The woman smiled at her, and Ginny realized that she was who had spoken.
"What about me?" Ginny said.
"Have you ever been summoned before?" The woman asked, her eyes crinkling with a smile. The woman was wearing a sweater with the words "World's Coolest Grandma" printed on it, and Ginny barely managed not to roll her eyes. So she was one of those types—an old grandmother who had all the time in the world and wanted to baby everyone.
"No," Ginny said, making her response as short as possible. The woman was undeterred by Ginny's clear reluctance, just nodded knowingly, the skin around her neck folding and creasing with each movement.
"I've never been summoned before either," the woman said. Although Ginny's expression remained uninterested, the elderly woman went on as she would to a captive audience. "I know, I know. With as old as I am, it's surprising that I haven't been summoned hundreds of times. I'm surprised too." Although Ginny was surprised, it didn't change the fact that she did not particularly care. "My name is Ms. Twila Wilson," the woman said.
Although the conversation was still being had against her will, Ginny couldn't help but notice the strange introduction. She certainly did not introduce herself as "Ms. Ginny Sullivan" and to hear Ms. Wilson say her name as such was odd to Ginny. What was odder still was the Grandmother sweater.
"Ms?" Ginny repeated. "There's no Mr. Wilson?"
"Not the last time I checked," Ms. Wilson replied with a smile. Ginny waited for further explanation, but none came.
"But you were married once?" Ginny asked finally.
"No, I never married," Ms. Wilson said, chuckling as if Ginny's questions were the funniest in the world. Ginny wondered if perhaps Ms. Wilson was simply glad to be getting a proper response.
"Oh…" Ginny said, realizing her questions were bordering on impertinent. She paused, considered dropping the matter, but then decided that it was, after all, Ms. Wilson's fault they were talking to one another at all. Therefore, if Ms. Wilson hadn't wanted to be asked questions, she shouldn't have opened the conversation. It practically justified the prying. "But you have kids?"
Ms. Wilson shook her head, looking a little more serious. "Now in your lifetime maybe it's acceptable for a single lady to go about popping out children without a soul by her side, but in my time, it was not considered proper. I am not the sort to go about having children out of wedlock."
"Right," Ginny said awkwardly. She couldn't tell if Ms. Wilson was offended by the suggestion, or if the tiny smile at her lips signified that she was actually messing with Ginny. "But your sweater…"
Ms. Wilson looked down at her sweater with surprise, laughing when she saw what Ginny meant. "My sister was a grandmother of five," Ms. Wilson said, chuckling still. "When she passed, she left a lot of her old clothes behind. People tend to do that when the die, you know."
Ginny didn't say anything—she didn't know what she was supposed to say. Ms. Wilson was grinning like she was telling the funniest joke in the world, but she'd just said that her sister had died. Ginny wondered… Should she laugh?
"Anyway, so it's just me and a closet full of sweaters and shirts and pants that'll never get worn again, because for some reason no one wants the clothes of the dead. Sure, I could have taken them to Good Will or the sort, but no one would want them there. The clothes were old, which makes sense, because my sister was old. And they had stains, and tears, and were really the proper clothing of a well-loved grandmother. So then I had the epiphany that I could still wear them—we're about the same size, you see. So I took most of them and just added to my clothing. This sweater was hers."
Ginny still didn't know how to respond, but she was getting very weirded out by the dead sister's sweater.
"I always joked that I would have made the world's coolest grandmother," Ms. Wilson added, smiling over at Ginny. This time Ginny was sure that she was supposed to find this funny, but somehow after finding out the sweater had belonged to a deceased sister, there wasn't a lot of humor left. Ginny managed a painful sort of half-smile.
"What about you?" Ms. Wilson asked. "You're what, a college student?"
Ginny could feel her ears turning pink. For a moment she wondered how Ms. Wilson had guessed, and then remembered she was wearing her school's T-shirt. She had just gotten a taste of her own questioning. "I was," she said off-handedly. "Last semester."
"And you're not now?" Ms. Wilson said, watching her closely. It was amazing to Ginny how fast the woman could go from laughing to serious—amazing, and kind of scary.
"No," Ginny said. "I took a year off to find myself."
"And what does that mean?" Ms. Wilson asked. "To 'find yourself'?"
"I'm just testing out what I like, traveling, looking for my, you know, place. Where I belong."
"And you have a job then?" Ms. Wilson said. "While you 'find yourself'?"
"Not exactly," Ginny said, shifting in her seat. "But it's okay. My mom and dad still support me. I've got at least a year to figure stuff out this way."
If disapproval could have taken one single, physical form, it would have looked like the expression on Ms. Twila Wilson's face at that moment. She clearly had more questions for Ginny, or perhaps a few choice comments, but they were interrupted. The Bossy Lady had returned with more instructions.
"I'm going to read off your names. If you're in Group one you will go to Room 301 down the hall. If you're in Group two you will go to Room 405 upstairs. If you are in Group three you will stay here. If your name is not read, please see me when everyone else has been called."
Because she could tell that Ms. Wilson had more to say, Ginny averted her eyes and watched the Bossy Lady. Her attentiveness paid off and she was called right at the end of Group one. Unfortunately, Ms. Wilson was called right after her.
They left the room together, went down the hall, and took seats that were near one another. This changed almost immediately, because the officials in charge of the room started numbering jurors off, and Ms. Wilson ended up as potential Juror number 9, while Ginny ended up as an alternate potential juror. Ginny was quite satisfied with her position as an alternate because it meant thirty people would be interviewed before her, and all they needed for this jury was twelve. With even a little luck, Ginny would be done with jury duty soon.
They waited for an hour for the officials to be ready to begin. Ginny decided that this courtroom was her favorite because the walls were blue. Not a bright blue, or even a particularly noticeable blue, but enough of a blue for them to be distinguished from beige. When the questioning finally began, Ginny was already ready for it to be over.
"Each juror should please state their name when their number is called."
Ginny did not recognize any of the thirty potential jurors being questioned, so she did not bother listening to their names. Even as she was trying to ignore them, though, she couldn't help hearing Juror 9 say that her name was "Ms. Twila Wilson."
When they finished naming all of the jurors, the lawyers seemed to pull their "serious face" from thin air. There was no more smiling, or joking about hard to pronounce names, and at last, there was no more pointless waiting. They were down to business.
"Do any of you want to serve on this jury?"
It was a simple question, and it had a simple answer. It was funny to Ginny to see the answer, because it surprised her even if she knew it shouldn't have. She, after all, did not want to serve on the jury. As a matter of fact, she was so against wasting any more of her time with jury duty that she was seriously considering trying out the "pretend to be racist" comment if she was interviewed. Still, somehow she had assumed that, as a teenager, it was her natural duty to be bitter. She had assumed that when you became a full-fledged adult with a job, and a family, and a life, you suddenly grew up and decided you wanted to do your duty. She had been wrong.
Only one person raised their hand, and it was Ms. Twila Wilson.
"And why would you like to serve on this jury?" one of the lawyers asked, using a voice he clearly considered to be kind. To Ginny it sounded condescending—it was the same voice that someone used talking to a child, a voice that you used if someone was beneath you, or too stupid to understand. She didn't know why, but for some reason his tone bothered her.
"I want to do my civic duty," Ms. Wilson answered politely. "I want to serve my community."
They asked her follow up questions, trying to trick her into saying that she was really some secret murderer, or that she had a fetish for trials, but nothing came out. As near as Ginny could tell, Ms. Wilson honestly wanted to serve her community. The selflessness of it was a tad sickening.
The lawyers started addressing the other jurors again, asking them basic questions to establish their character. Ms. Wilson did not answer to any of the questions about having an issue with race, sexuality, or understanding the law. Funny enough, Ginny noticed that the pudgy man, now Juror 22, who had claimed he would just pretend to be racist, had also not spoken up as having an issue with any of the three areas.
When the lawyers asked if anyone had experience with the military, several jurors raised their hand. One of them was Ms. Twila Wilson.
"I served several years in the navy," Ms. Wilson said. She described her familiarity with firearms, which had also been a question, and from her limited understanding of weaponry, Ginny gathered that Ms. Wilson was experienced in a wide range of guns.
"Has anyone here ever had their house broken into?"
Again, Ms. Twila Wilson raised her hand. When they called on her, she said, "My house was broken into last year. Some imbecile broke into my house with me in there. I could have taken him on, but I was holding a friend's baby at the time and didn't want to risk her safety. It was a very frustrating, unnerving experience."
"And will that effect how you feel about break-ins during the trial?"
"Well I can't say for sure," Ms. Wilson said. "I keep a gun close around the house now—easier to access than before. And I dare say that the next person to try and waltz into my house like they own the place will definitely get shot. But I think I can stay fairly impartial."
From beside Ginny the cute teenage boy from the waiting room whistled appreciatively. "Geez, don't mess with that grandma," he muttered.
Ginny looked over, ready to tell him how Ms. Wilson wasn't a grandmother, and the story about the sweater for good measure, when she remembered that they weren't allowed to talk during questioning.
They continued questioning the jurors, although many of the questions seemed to be aimed at Ms. Wilson. From her answers Ginny was able to gather a clearer picture of the shriveled, elderly woman. She had been in the navy and honorably discharged. She volunteered often at the Veterans Hospital and with children in after school programs. She always voted, and she helped her friends who needed extra assistance get to the polls. She donated to her church organization, and she stayed up to date with politics. She attended school board meetings even though all of her family was out of the school system already, and she attended every city council meeting to stay informed. She was a big supporter of gun regulations, but also fiercely protected her second amendment right.
When they got back around to the question of race she was quick to say that it didn't matter, and when they got to the question of sexuality she pursed her lips thoughtfully.
"In my time it's not natural," she said slowly. "Most of my friends think it's wrong… I used to. But then I realized it doesn't really matter to most of us. What folks do behind their own doors—that's their prerogative. And I've never seen one instance yet where more love in the world is a bad thing, so I say let it be."
They asked the jurors about whether they could use computers and Ms. Wilson said that she used facebook to "check up on her grand-nieces and grand-nephews" and that she knew how to do "that twitter thing" as well. They got more specific, with questions regarding the case itself and the people involved. Finally they were done, and the lawyers sat discussing in whispers for their allotted few minutes. At last the judge had the list of approved jurors, and Ginny waited anxiously for it to be read.
"The following jurors need to stay for further instructions," the judge said. "Jurors 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 14, 15, 17, 21, 22, 28, and 29. 30 will be our alternate. Thank you all for your service. If your number was not called, your jury service is now fulfilled and the court thanks you for your time."
Ginny grinned as she stood up, stretching out her limbs from the long day of sitting. She was elated to not be serving, and was already thinking of all of the things she would be doing instead of sitting on a boring jury. As she was congratulating the cute teenage boy next to her on escaping jury duty, she realized that he was distracted. He was staring at the front row, where Ms. Wilson was slowly getting to her feet.
"That's one cool grandmother," he said, smiling. "Did you hear all that amazing stuff she did?"
Ginny looked over too, noticing for the first time that Ms. Wilson wasn't smiling anymore. She looked tired, and disappointed. Ginny remembered that Ms. Wilson had wanted jury duty, and also remembered that Juror 9 had not been called to stay.
Looking down the line Ginny could see Juror 22 sitting with his arms crossed, fuming about having to stay. Looking back at Ms. Wilson's sad expression, Ginny felt a little resentment towards the man. He had taken a place that Ms. Wilson could have had—he should be happy. Thrilled, even. And then, with a cold stab in the gut, Ginny realized the irony of her situation. She certainly had a lot of nerve judging Juror 22 when here she was, practically skipping now that she'd gotten out of jury duty.
At that moment Ms. Wilson's gaze found Ginny's, and even in her disappointment, Ms. Wilson smiled in the same kind way she had before. She waved with a twisted, arthritic hand, and started shuffling out of the room. Ginny smiled too, never taking her eyes off the elderly woman.
"Yeah," she said. "Ms. Twila Wilson would have made one cool grandmother."
This is a short story I've been working on. If you have a minute and would offer feedback, that'd be fantastic.

Rereading this I'm kind of afraid it's just a jumbled mess, so here's what I was going for generally:
-Ginny starts out as a disinterested little snot at the beginning who absolutley thinks she's too good to be at jury duty. She meets Twila Wilson, who is just a generally eccentric, neat old lady, and at the end realizes she was being selfish and should have a little more respect for a civic duty (she never goes so far as to wish she had gotten jury duty, though... She's not that sorry).
-For it to feel complete I'd like to close with a reference to stuff from earlier to the story, so including one or all of these elements: "Ms. Twila Wilson", Twila being called a 'cool grandmother', or the color of the walls. This is what I came up with but... I dunno. It just doesn't seem right yet. Suggestions?
© 2012 - 2024 FullofSecrets
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MissZenGray's avatar
I finally made time to read this :aww:

Ms. Twila Wilson reminds me of my mother. I'm going to come straight out and say that even though my mom is no where near being grandma-age. It's the sense of humour and the way she likes to actually answer people's questions - whereas most people don't. I think that you got that part down great - the reluctance of people to do things that do not actually serve themselves. It's a sad state of the world, but true.

I'm torn as to whether or not I should like Ginny. I'm not sure that she comes across as a huge snot considering that she is acting as most normal people her age would. At least, I know a lot of people that would act that way. The ignoring of an elderly person, focusing on miniscule things, bored with life, and 'trying to find themselves'. That's pretty normal here, unfortunately. So I thought that, instead of portraying someone particularly annoying and full of themselves, you were displaying the sad state of young adults these days.

As for closure, I might suggest adding one small thing, if you want to tie in the wall colour thing. In the beginning I think you mentioned that the elderly might not like orange for the walls. Maybe, as Ginny is leaving say that not only would she have made a cool grandmother, but she probably would have liked orange on the walls.

That's pretty much all I got, I thought it was pretty well written!