by HAL MOUNTSAUERKRAUTEN, Alternate Reality News Service Court Writer
To Franklin Enunciato, it was all just a bad dream. His head was a basketball, and whenever he tried to speak, he sounded like a church organ. He was standing at an intersection, the streets falling away as though he was at the top of a cone; he knew he had to get to his daughter's pinto recital (I know, I know - bean there, done that! - still, it was his daughter), but he didn't know which direction to go in. Whenever he stopped passersby to ask where his daughter's low school was, they made the sign of the cross and, confused by the lack of stain glass windows in the vicinity, quickly moved along. Rather than becoming angry, Enunciato was becoming melancholic, with a hint of vanilla ripple. Before the emotion could build, the ground beneath him started to shake. After a couple of seconds, the rumbling seemed to be getting closer. Then, it stopped. Then, it started coming closer again. Then, it stopped again. Then, closer. Closer. Clooooooser. Just when Enunciato thought he would explode from the melancholy - but tasty - tension, a chicken bounded up the street towards him. A 12 storey tall chicken. And, here he was with only tweezers and a copy of The Atlantic dated July, 1937 with which to defend himself! [There followed a long part of the dream involving Enunciato's mother that is too embarrassing to relate in a family publication.] The dream ended with Enunciato lying on his back just outside the third base line at Skydome, wearing nothing but a lobster bib, thinking, That cloud looks like the entire cast of the Edmonton Oilhouse Players' production of Mamma Mia! Except...where's Emma Stone?
The next day, Franklin Enunciato was charged with murder most fowl (the wanton destruction of 27 chickens, 12 geese and a stray heron - the largest bird slaughter in the Greater Timmins Area this month).
"You think I'm going to give you a quote after such a vividly rendered dream?" bitched Enunciato's lawyer, Desdemona Accretion-Disque. "Get back to me in a couple of paragraphs, after the reader has had a chance to recover from the imagery!"
Enunciato was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of Led Zeppelin and held overnight at the Kim Campbell Correctional Krashpad and Drunk on Life Tank. Unbeknownst to Enunciato (who had left his knownst in his other pair of pants when he was arrested), built into the walls of each cell were sensors that monitored his brainwaves, creating patterns that could be reconstructed and read by his jailors.
"I'm not sure about the basketball image," stated Floyd Battram, the foremost penal dreamologist in the Greater Timmins Area. "Maybe the subject had a bad experience with a hypodermic syringe when he was a child. But, the chicken imagery was clear. More or less. You know for such an inexact science..."
Based on Battram's judgment, the police got a court order to search Enunciato's home, where they found shovels and rakes and implements of destruction, all coated with the blood of 27 chickens, 12 geese and a stray heron. Imagine his surprise when, instead of being released on his own recognizance (but, do any of us truly recognizance ourselves?), he faced 137 addition charges.
Now?
"Hell, yes, now!" Accretion-Disque roared. "The order to search my client's home was what we lawyers call 'the fruit of the poisoned tin can.' Those suspected of a crime are not obligated to do anything that would incriminate them - otherwise, what the hell would we have to pay cops for? Anyway, reading my client's dreams is like the factory where fruit is put into cans shut with a mercury based solder - anything that comes into contact with them would be unhealthy to eat. And, umm, illegal to present in a court of law."
The crown has argued that the Supreme Court of Canada has held that incriminating evidence can be allowed at trial as long as it isn't, you know, toooooooooo incriminating. In Crown v Globstein (Tuesdays, Fridays and every third Monday), much of the evidence that Schmooey Globstein killed his business partner was made up of a series of Farcebook posts outlining exactly how he did it, including photos and diagrams. "Stupid should not be rewarded by the theory of the fruit of the poisoned can," the unanimous decision read.
"So, the poisoned can uses solder that's only partially mercury?" Accretion-Disque scoffed. She argued that dreams are the most personal, intimate kind of information you can imagine (other, perhaps, than imagination), and, in any case, everybody's dreams seem stupid to other people, but that's no reason to use them to subvert the justice system. "Supreme Court, here we come! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
Meanwhile, Enunciato says he doesn't mind being held without bail until a trial date can be set. "You kidding me?" he stated. "That was the best night's sleep I've had in years!"