Abstract Collage of Evocative Nonsense

         Now     0 is a fat cypher who’s married to 1, an unpretentious         skinny number,         like Jack Sprat and his wife.         2 is just an ass, alone like         3, who’s rather odd, an unfinished heart but leads the other numbers, dutifully. 4 is stocky and graceless who holds hands         with 5, the most clever number.         And                 6 is a petty gossip, jealous of                 ...

I was sitting in docket, reviewing whatever case file I was going to be arguing in a few minutes in the last docket in this division before Christmas.  The courtroom was still bustling, even though it was getting close to the end of the morning.   I was just one of half a dozen attorneys sitting in front of the bar -- the prosecutors on one side and the Public Defenders on the other, with the private attorneys milling around in the middle.  The gallery seats behind us were still full, as was the bench along the side of the courtroom behind the defense table with a row of orange jumpsuit clad prisoners, their hands cuffed behind their backs, which made a scratching and jingling sound when they moved, which reminded me, given the upcoming holiday, of the rattlings of the ghost of Jacob Marley in a Christmas Carol. I wasn’t really listening to the prisoner at the lectern.  His counsel was standing between him and the prosecutors’ table, so I couldn’t even reall...