I recently spent a
day in court, listening to the proceedings of a
murder trial, from the murder of an aquaintance. The main reason I was there was to hold the hands of two of my closest and dearest
friends, the unfortunate people who found his body.
Hard as it was to hear described,
in graphic detail, the course of the
victim's ordeal of
torture and
murder, it was harder to watch the faces of my friends disorted with
grief,
anger,
disgust and horror whilst they relived their part in this
theatre of
sturm und drang.
What was hardest for them, even harder than reliving it and retelling it to a jury, was being in the same room with the accused. In this case, the
defendant has been accused not only by the State but by his two
accomplices, who have already admitted their
guilt and given
testimony in order to confirm his.
When we looked into his eyes, we all saw the same thing: nothing. No
soul, no
emotion, nothing resembling a
human behind his irises. Just an empty vessel of flesh.
This experience confirms it for me that there are some people who are without
spirit.