The Second Derivative

“X to the second power doesn’t exist,” the judge bellowed at the top of his lungs. “There is no such thing as an exponent!”

This immediately caused an uproar amongst the jurors. One man had to be escorted from the courtroom after he stood up and began reciting the quadratic formula from memory. “You’ll never silence us, Judge! We’re the plurality!” announced the man as the bailiff dragged him away.

“I won’t have such talk in my court, young man. Take your evil postulates outside.”

See the fire in his eyes? That’s justice.

Banging his gavel slowly, the old man’s eyes beamed with the venerated glow of righteousness. You won’t make a fool out of me in this place, thought the judge to himself. It had been many a decade since Judge Ante Agoniste had been challenged in such a manner.

“Continue, Mrs. Modren.”

“Yes, judge?”

“Tell the court who you saw last Friday calculating the area under a curve.”

“Yes, yes. It was... him!” she jerked her gnarled hand out in an awkward manner until it moved in the general vicinity of Prote Agoniste.

An accusation or an interpolation? You be the judge.

“Let the record show that the witness pointed directly at Mr. Agoniste,” said the judge blandly to the court stenographer. “Also, add in a line about my new haircut.”

“Yes, judge,” clicked the stenographer, typing away with the speed of a jackrabbit on a jackhammer inside a Jack-in-the-Box.

“Okay, I think we’ve got everything we need here. We’ve got a witness, a plaintiff, a defendant, and some me, the judge. So I’m just gonna declare you guilty and get us all home early.”

“But, Ante!” cried Prote Agoniste. “You’re my brother-”

“In law. Never forget that, Prote.”

“But you know I didn’t do no math! I was with you, throwing cats into the river, Ante! We both know it was-”

“Bailiff, hit that man in the head repeatedly!”

Judge Agoniste smirked as Prote was driven away to jail forever. “Now I can drown cats without any witnesses,” he mused. “Ha! And who’s going to stop me?!” He then sat down, realizing he had screamed the whole thing to a packed courtroom. Fortunately, he managed to make everyone forget what they just heard by using his Vaudeville ventriloquism act.

You can barely see his lips move.

Ten years later a prison train carrying Prote Agoniste collided with Judge Ante Agoniste’s car. As they were polar opposites, they fused into one person. Then the story was forced to end, because there was neither a Prote Agoniste or an Ante Agoniste.