Cato: A Short Story

Cato leaned further back into his chair, the faux leather covering said chair groaned in retaliation at the movement. His glasses gleamed as if an lightbulb had glowed in front them, his thoughts halted as an idea for his current case had just transpired in his head. His sharp smirk at the idea looked deadly. He would win this case now. He walked back into the courtroom ready to win

"Is it true that you claim to have been touched inappropriately by this man?" Cato questioned the clearly drug addicted woman. Her hands shook in fury and nodded her head, before further confirming her claim.

"Yes." The woman said unfaltering in her movements. Cato's glasses glinted ever so mockingly at the woman's statement. Pushing his glasses up, he looked
here straight in the eye.

"But do you realise that the man you accuse of is not..." He watched her carefully, she fidgeted under his stare. Everyone waited for his next words. His glasses glowed, as if they knew his plan. "...sexually attracted to you?" The courtroom exploded in outburst. The judge nearly broke his gavel trying to restore order to his court.

"Objection your honour! This man is accusing a woman who was wrongfully sexually assaulted by this man that she was not aware of his lack of sexual attraction to her? It's a baloney accusation!" The other lawyer cried.

Cato just smiled and asked ever so politely if he may continue. The judge nodded and said for him to proceed.

"The fact is Miss Balderdash, the man you accuse of is not sexually attracted to you. In fact he isn't sexually attracted to any women. He is gay." Again the room collapsed into another outburst. The judge once again had to calm everyone down

"Sir how dare you accuse me of lying! I shall have you know that, that man touched me!" She screeched. His glasses flickered at her choice of words, what a fool she was.

"I didn't say you were lying Miss Balderdash. That is your own words." She visibly paled at the lawyers witty thinking. He smirked at her defeated expression. The woman fidgeted again before jumping to her feet and throwing a book at Cato's face. The book hit his face, causing his nose to break and his glasses to break in half at the force. The officers restrained the woman. As people raced to Cato to help him, he stared longingly at his broken glasses. They glinted at him, as if encouraging him to keep going even without his sight. Holding the broken pieces in his hand, the broken glass cut into his palm. He stood off ignoring everyone and holding his bleeding nose in place.

"You are fool Miss Balderdash.
For not only accusing a man who isn't even attracted to your gender, but accusing him without any evidence besides faint bruises on your legs. Which do not have any evidence of my client touching you." The woman spat in his face, Cato simply wiped the spit off his face and the judge called the case to order and called the woman to be locked in a cell for her abuse of Cato. The other lawyer tried to make an appeal for his client, but her actions made the mans words fall on deaf ears. Cato smirked as the glass from his glasses dug into his palm more, he knew he had won the case. Quickly and smoothly. Suddenly the woman broke free from the officers grasp, Cato panicked as she ran towards him with hells fury. His hand tightened around the shard that was in his hand, was now in the woman's stomach. She choked a sob and fell to the ground in pain. He backed away in slow breathes at the damage that had been done. He could hear the sirens as he stared into the palm of his hand with the glass shard covered blood staring back him in shame. Soon he was taken to the hospital for his
injuries.

Sitting in his office, his nose ached from the woman's abuse earlier that day. He looked at the glasses that laid broken on his desk. The broken pieces were tinted slightly with his and her blood. It reminded him of what he had done to the woman. He basically did accuse her of lying to the court, he basically ridiculed her life and sent her to jail when she really was the victim. Apparently she was alive and the judge had made his decision and gave her five years in prison for false accusations and attacking him.

But the thing was his client had touched her inappropriately, his client wasn't gay. But he was lawyer. This was his job. To twist the facts, tell the events in a different order. His client was bisexual, so he only twisted that fact. He sighed in discontentment. He let a perverted man free. All for money.

The light from his lamp, illuminated his broken glasses. The glasses seem to glare at him. As if shaming him for his deeds. His blurred vision was also mocking him. Without his glasses he could not see clearly at all. His distorted vision hurt his head. His eyes worked overtime trying to make sense of the world to them, trying to make them focus. But his eyes efforts were in vain. He looked around him seeing nothing but the obscureness of the room.

He picked up the broken glasses.
He had made an appointment but they were full till the next week so he had to wait to get them fixed. He had placed tape around the bridge of his glasses. Though weak and broken, he put them on. He vision focused where the fragments of the lenses remained. He walked to his bathroom, where a mirror waited for him. Looking at his untidy reflection, the cracked and broken spectacles ridiculed him. Looking at his distorted reflection longer, he hated himself. Breaking off a piece of his glasses, he looked at the blurred fragment. Running his finger over the the side of the sharp shard, it stung his finger. Like thorns from roses. He firmly held the shard, and slid it across his wrist. He leant against the tiled wall. He slid down it till he hit the floor, and started relaxing into the tiled walls cold embrace. He held the shard to his chest and looked to his blurred red
wrist.

He was content just to feel something other than the hurt and confusion and self-hate that was driving him insane. The felt relief from his emotional pain was nicer than he had imagined.

He sat there relishing in the pain. The blood would stop flowing. Clogging itself. But Cato would cut again.

Cato hated himself so much, that he wanted to tear himself to pieces. He sat there, in pieces. He stayed there til morning. Ready to repeat his week again.

And again.

And again.