I Plead Not Guilty

Joseph Mokouba-Sony (2nd place. Creative Nonfiction. Spring 2011 Writing Contest)

I have been summoned to court by the judge for charges of leading young adults into committing inhuman acts, engaging in dangerous plays, and even snapping away their character. I am sorry to announce that I cannot make it to court on the given date due to how tremendously busy my work has made me and the ceaseless requests for my services from my customers. But as an honest defendant with no guilty conscience, I have decided to sincerely tell the judge all she needs to know.

My name is Cole. My friends call me Crake. In the business arena, I am known as Coke. Common men refer to me as Drug (which I hate), disregarding my conspicuous uniqueness and kingship over other “drugs.”

Honestly, I understand why these charges have been laid on me. My image to most men has been nothing credible. They speak evil of me when they see the mischievous characters of my abusive clients. They blame me for their loved ones’ carelessness and ignorance, and now, they have decided to crucify me for crimes I have never committed.

I am a sincere business guy who loves the satisfaction his clients get from his services. Your Honor, it might interest you to know that all my clients come to me for nothing more than my services. With their own feet they walk into my domain, and with their own hands they purchase my services. All in their full consciousness. I have never, not even once, put my ad on any TV channel, nor has my name been heard on any radio station. So whoever comes to me, I assume, must have gotten enough information about me and how to manage my services from a reliable source. Therefore my services have no restrictions, be it age, emotional state, or social status. I freely give to whomever asks.

About my service: I am nothing but a humble servant to those who respect my superiority when compared with the rest of my competitors. Pharmacists and doctors regulate my activities in any system by their careful skills and neutralize my effects when my work is done. They smartly send me into the system along with some “alien drugs,” and through a perfect pathway that leads me directly to my only work site in the body, the brain. The brain is my only work site in the body because only there do the enzymes that recognize me reside. When my work is done, the system enjoys little or no side-effects. The alien drugs whom I know nothing about, do the neutralizing job.

Your honor, I am proud to announce that I am among the top-five “drugs” extensively used by psychiatrists, surgeons, and oncologists in their research and treatments. So I assert with conviction that I am of true benefit to mankind.

But on the other hand, the features of my services deviate in my abusers’ systems. Most of my abusive clients not only force a high proportion of me into their system, but also through the wrong pathway. They mostly use the nasal pathway to send me into their system. This really disgusts me. The dust hanging on their vibrissae and the nasty-smelling mucus residing on their nasal walls defile my white coat even before I get to the work site. The worst part of this route is that the mucus snatches some of my associates from me and traps them. Because this is not our work site and the enzymes there do not recognize either me or my associates, a battle stirs up. My worthy associates attack the surrounding blood vessels causing sinusitis and hoarseness, and pull down a part of the septum. When the battle is over, they term the battle field “coke nose.”

Air pressure forces the remaining part of me into the lungs which reside at the inferior end of the nasal pathway. In the lungs the same scenario occurs. Organic enzymes jump me and I respond, damaging some alveoli and leaving the lungs with shortness of breath.

After a while, blood from pulmonary circulation rushes in and carries me into the heart. Here I receive the worst beating of my life. The pumping pressure of the heart forces the blood to hit me as hard as a hurricane would demolish a building. In self-defense I constrict the converging blood vessels that bring blood into the heart, thereby decreasing blood supply to the heart. This, against my intention, causes chest pain and heart attack to the system.

After a couple more fights as the blood circulates round the system and leads me to various strange sites, I finally arrive at my work site. In the brain I begin my work as soon I am receipted by the enzymes. I still maintain my work ethic even after going through so much in my abuser’s system. I service their central nervous system, causing them to feel increased energy both physically and mentally. I excite them and make them feel less hunger and fatigue. I garnish these feelings with talkativeness and a euphoric attitude.

These are the qualities that make me so addictive that the poor spend a good percent of their income just to have my service, preferring to be broke than to miss my treat. The rich pay no attention to their pocket because it never goes dry. Oh, how they admire their sudden hyper-humorous character when I am at work in their system. Although this character is unprofessional in terms of their social status, they don’t mind it just to enjoy my perks.

As we all know, every disobedient act deserves punishment, and this is the case of my abusive clients. After some days, due to neglect of the proportionality rule and non-restrictive company, the sensation progresses to the opposite. The sense of excitement turns into restlessness and irritability. In response to this, they use their increased energy for negative activities. Depending on the degree of disobedience and neglect, in some cases, the client feels muscle jerks and hears voices and sounds that are not there. All these are the consequences of their disobedience.

So your Honor, I do nothing more than what I am meant to do in any system. The positive and negative aspects of my services are directly proportional to the degree of consciousness asserted by my clients when administering me into their systems. The doctors enjoy the positive and the abusers suffer the negative. Therefore I still maintain my stand that I am not guilty of the charges laid on me.
 
 
 
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