Online | Paula Rego: The Stories of Stories Exhibition Tour

He had imagined the court room as a big place. It wasn’t. It was about the size of his living room, with an elevation at one end, with a dais on it. The judges and the attorneys sat there. Below it was an old wooden rail, worn out in some places. That was his place. There was another seat for his lawyer. At the back, about 20 or 30 chairs were stowed out for the non-existent crowd.

It was a quiet night in the dessert. Even the mice weren’t around. A few LEDs blinked in the dark, and the sound of a fan filled the infinite void. The conversation cutting the silence seemed to go nowhere.

He didn’t expect this from me. And I hadn’t expected that we would decide to get married that day, at that moment. Everything happened all of a sudden, but exactly like it was supposed to happen in our day. We thought of the idea of marriage simultaneously, we smiled simultaneously, blinking and opening our eyes in unison.