The blades of the punkah circulate the stifling air around the room, the sweaty brows of the lawyers glistening against the cheap but blinding LED overhead. “Present your closing statements”, announces an alert figure, sitting attentively in the judge’s esteemed chair. Ignorant of his nails scraping against fraying wood, the advocate proceeds to efficiently absolve his client of all blame before confidently resting his case. There was nothing more to be done.
Mr. Malhotra entwined his knuckles until they took on the shade of a ghostly white. His shocking green eyes met with the judge’s murky, brown ones. It was an electrifying moment. Refusing to drop his gaze, the accused glared right back, as if daring the judge to pass the dreaded sentence, for one moment, then two…
A fixed glare surveyed the specks of brown scurrying through the shafts of dappled sunlight almost invisible but not to the eagle’s eye. Mind made up, feathered wings dived below the azure skies, darting through the steadfast canopies of leaves with practiced ease. Close enough to see the coat glistening in the glossy coats of fear, and beneath the fixation and fierceness of the amber glare, the eagle too is apprehensive about the kill.
The taste of blood from a week gone by is still fresh in the concaves of its beak, as he swoops down to narrowly miss a bronze opportunity. Tufts of fur stick to his sharpened yellow beauty as he tosses them in the playful breeze swinging past. With a final pinpoint, the eagle dives in for the kill again, and this time the hare writhes helplessly, once, then twice …
… then the eyelashes fluttered, draping the irises in chequered blinds of black. They had surrendered.