The Gavel of Graphite
The charcoal stick snaps between my thumb and forefinger, a sharp report that sounds like a gavel in the unnatural silence of the 31st District Court. I don’t look up. Iris J.-P. never looks up until the curve of the jaw is captured, a singular line of graphite that contains more truth than the 101 pages of testimony currently being shuffled by a tired paralegal. My fingertips are stained a deep, carbonized black, the residue of 11 hours spent translating human misery into two-dimensional shades of grey. Across the aisle, the defendant is vibrating. It is a subtle, high-frequency tremor that most people miss because they are too busy listening to the words, but from my vantage point, the tremor is the only thing that is real. It is the physical manifestation of a man who is terrified of the stillness, a man who would rather be found guilty of 41 counts of larceny than sit with the silence of his own hands.
We are currently in a recess that has lasted for 51 minutes. The judge is in chambers, the jury is in limbo, and I am trapped in that peculiar, suffocating space between observation and existence. It reminds me of a dinner party I attended last Tuesday, where I spent exactly 21 minutes trying to leave. I had my coat in my hand, my keys were already digging a small, metal-shaped hole into my palm, yet I was held hostage by the polite fiction of a conversation about artisanal sourdough. The frustration of that moment-the invisible tether of social expectation-is the same frustration that clogs the gears of this courtroom. We are all waiting for permission to move, for a signal from an authority figure that tells us our time is once again our own.
The Core Truth
There is a core frustration in being alive right now: the sense that we are constantly auditioning for our own lives. But here is the contrarian truth that 31 years of sketching criminals has taught me: most action is just a form of hiding. Stillness is not stagnation; it is the ultimate rebellion against a world that demands we always be ‘on’ and ‘moving.’
– [the truth is in the hands]
Gravity and the Unnoticed Signs
Iris J.-P. knows this. I’ve watched her for 11 months across various high-profile trials. She doesn’t draw the eyes first. She draws the hands. The way a woman grips her handbag with 51 pounds of pressure, her knuckles turning the color of bleached bone. The way a lawyer adjusts his tie for the 101st time, a nervous tic that reveals the fragility of his case. These are the details that matter. In our modern rush to achieve some nebulous ‘progress,’ we’ve lost the ability to notice the 11 small signs that everything is falling apart. We think that by increasing the speed of our lives, we are outrunning the consequences, but gravity doesn’t care about your schedule. It doesn’t care if you’ve had a conversation for 21 minutes or 121 minutes; when the structure fails, it fails.
Consequences of Increased Activity (Fictional Metric)
11
Explanations
21
Recess Time
41
Larceny Counts
81
Losses
101
Total Weight
The Systems Fail, The Witness Remains
I made a mistake once, about 31 months ago. I thought I could handle a leak in my studio by simply ignoring it, by ‘moving through it’ and focusing on my work. I told myself that my creative drive was more important than the damp patch on the ceiling. I acted like a busy person, a productive person, a person who didn’t have time for the mundane realities of property maintenance. I filled my days with 61 different tasks to avoid the 1 task that mattered: looking up. By the time I finally stopped the frantic dance of my own productivity, the ceiling hadn’t just leaked; it had surrendered. The weight of the water had reached its 101st gallon, and the entire structure collapsed onto my drafting table, destroying 81 original sketches.
This is where we get it wrong. We assume that the system-be it the legal system, the social system, or the insurance system-is designed to catch us when we fall. We assume that if we follow the 11 steps of the protocol, we will be made whole. But systems are made of paper, and paper dissolves when the rain starts. Sometimes, you need more than just a process; you need a witness. You need someone who can look at the wreckage of your 31st attempt at stability and say, ‘This is what happened, and this is what it’s worth.’ When the ceiling of your life caves in-literally, perhaps, after a storm that leaves 41 shingles scattered across the lawn-you don’t just wait for the sky to apologize. You find someone who actually looks at the damage. Someone like
National Public Adjusting who understands that the fine print is just another script designed to keep you in that uncomfortable, 21-minute-long conversation with fate while your world is still damp.
“
I remember sketching a witness who spent 111 minutes on the stand trying to explain why he didn’t call for help when the fire started. He had 101 excuses, all of them plausible, all of them delivered with the practiced ease of a man who has spent his whole life being ‘busy.’ But as he spoke, I drew his feet. They were tucked back under his chair, his heels lifted, ready to run. He wasn’t telling the story of the fire; he was telling the story of his own cowardice, captured in the angle of his Achilles tendon.
– [the silence is the claim]
The Currency of Attention
We are all that witness. We tell stories about our ‘journey’ and our ‘growth,’ but our feet are already halfway out the door. We are so desperate to avoid the discomfort of the present moment that we will agree to almost anything to escape it. That 21-minute conversation I had at the dinner party? It wasn’t about sourdough. It was about my own inability to be seen as ‘rude.’ I was prioritizing the social comfort of a stranger over the 1 truth of my own fatigue. I was acting, just like the defendant across from me is acting. He is pretending to be a man who belongs in a suit, while I am pretending to be a woman who is merely a neutral observer. But there is no such thing as a neutral observer. Every line I draw is a judgment. Every 1-millimeter stroke of charcoal is an admission that I see through the facade.
We live in a culture that treats attention like a currency, but we spend it on 101 things that don’t matter. We spend it on the noise of the 24-hour news cycle, the 11th notification on our phones, the 41st comment on a post we didn’t even like. We are wealthy in distractions and bankrupt in presence. Iris J.-P. is the richest person in this room because she has spent the last 61 minutes looking at a single human hand. She isn’t waiting for the judge to return. She isn’t waiting for the 1 o’clock lunch break. She is simply here, in the charcoal-stained reality of the now.
The Weight of Seeing Everything at Once
When you stop moving, you notice the blur of everyone else.
The Illusion of Safety
There is a profound loneliness in this level of observation. When you stop moving, you notice that everyone else is just a blur. You see the 11 different versions of a person they present to the world, and you see the 1 version they keep hidden behind their ribs. It’s exhausting. It’s why I tried to end that conversation for 20-plus-1 minutes; I didn’t want to see the insecurity behind the sourdough talk. I didn’t want to see the 101 ways that person was also terrified of being alone. It’s easier to keep talking. It’s easier to keep moving. It’s easier to pretend that as long as we are ‘active,’ we are safe.
But safety is an illusion we buy with 31-year mortgages and 1-year warranties. Real security comes from the ability to look at the charcoal smudge on your life and not try to wipe it away immediately. It comes from knowing that when the 101st disaster hits, you won’t be caught in a polite conversation with the debris. You will have already seen the cracks. You will have already measured the weight. You will have already stopped waiting for permission to be honest about the damage.
The Difference Between Action and Reaction
Avoiding the present.
Accepting the damage.