The two koi ponds

I’m at the bottom of my third cup of coffee and walking back to the courthouse. I decided to take the long way and stop at the Parkside hotel to check in on the Koi living under the protection of its atrium. Structurally, the atrium is nothing special, but in the winter, it’s warm, and I like to sit and watch the Koi swim, unaware of the winter storm just a few feet from their pond.

The sound of children’s heavy winter boots slapping on the stamped concrete echoes off the glass walls, making the normally tranquil space feel lively and busy. As I sit down, a small girl with straight, shoulder-length black hair notices me and breaks from the pack of children playing some sort of game involving a ball and scarf.

“Hey, watch this,” she says, as she kneels down at the edge of the pond.

She slowly dips her hand into the water, reaching towards a spotted blue and white fish holding next to a boulder.

“This one lets me touch it,” she says, smiling up at me on my bench. “It always hangs out here.”

I watch her run her index finger along the fish’s back. The whiskered carp doesn’t seem bothered, but after a few passes of her finger, he slithers slowly back into the swirling, liquid mass of red, black, and white, disappearing from sight.

“It’s strange he allows you to do that,” I say to her. She looks Japanese, like my own daughter.

“Yeah, some of them will let you touch them. I’ve been working at it all week.”

“Very interesting,” I say.

“Well, my mom says we have to fly home today. Goodbye.”

“Safe travels, then,” I reply, waving my hand.

Overhead, the gnarled cherry trees are beginning to bloom, and I know that warmer weather is only a few weeks away.

Jury duty was a stroke of good luck and probably one of the most exciting things to happen to me in years.

After I got selected by the panel, I called up Abbey.

“See?” She said, “ I told you that you’d get the call — you’re jury material.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know, maybe you’re boring?” She said, laughing, “Or maybe you look obedient. Yeah, that’s it. I don’t know, you’re just good at this stuff. Following direction.”

When I got home that night, I took a shower to fight off the West Coast winter that had gotten into my bones again. As I stepped over the edge of the tub, I looked sideways at the mirror and saw a lined, pale, sagging face looking back at me. Jury material.

I thought back to the room full of people in the courthouse waiting to be interviewed by Crown Counsel. There had been a young woman sitting next to me, reading a book, Twilight of the Idols, and texting on her phone. She had tattoos on her hands and a septum piercing. She looked friendly, but her eyes were sad. I tried to make eye contact with her, but no luck. I wondered if she’d make a better juror than me; she definitely didn’t look the part, not like I did, with my black Church’s on.

That jury summons letter was a lifeline.

“You always get the best mail,” a friend said to me over pints on the night before I left.

I guess he was right. I make the most of my mail.

My mother once told me that I didn’t seem like the kind of child who would like working. It wasn’t an insult; it was an insightful observation, one only a good parent can arrive at.

I never showed up to the trial, and now, I’m living on another island, away from it all.

I miss my daughter, the only person who made being jury material worth it. But for now, I’m content to watch these Koi aimlessly drift in a dark pond at the forest’s edge, lit only by a string of red lights hanging from the cherry trees.