I'll be willing to sell my soul to you.

It was the first time I had ever been inside a court of law. It didn't look like the courtrooms I had seen in American movies. All the jury members were middle-aged and a few appeared to be sleepy, struggling to keep from falling into sugar comas no matter how many cups of coffee they drank.
I don't really remember what was said that day. I just remember a room filled with gray men and women with sagging faces and unfashionable glasses. Discreet ties and little pins on navy-colored lapels. Glasses of water. And that horrible taste of wood on my bony ass. Number 2 pencils scribbling notes. Coughs and one lone snore.
Marita looked down the whole time. She was dressed in an ill-fitting lady suit. Her hair looked as if it had been permed. Would they do that in jail? She answered via her translator who converted her inaudible Finnish mumble to Swedish. The answers varied from: I don't know to I don't remember and I'm not sure.
Juha, on the other hand, spoke loud and clear, in Swedish with a cute Finnish accent. He elaborated and gave detailed answers, and rocked on his chair, sometimes taking such risks with it that I feared he would fall. At one point when he was being lead out for recession, he passed our row and our eyes met. I saw stars. And became giddy with fluttering moth wings.

Some days before, in the windowless bathroom, I had stood in front of the mirror, and stared at myself. I didn't like what I saw, so I switched off the light. And within a split second I was cloaked in an unexplored part of the gray scale. I had disappeared and it wasn't entirely unpleasant. That's when I said the words out loud. Previously they had only been thoughts, in bold letters, rising to the foreground. I'll be willing to sell my soul to you. In exchange for what? I didn't have time to state my terms before a reflex made me unlock my door and throw myself on the handle and fall onto the hallway floor.