INT. COURTROOM IN THE BACK OF ANNA’S MIND. BRIGHT LIGHTS HIGHLIGHT THE STAINED WOOD FLOORS THAT SHINE WHEN LOOKED AT THE RIGHT ANGLE. THE CAMERA PANS UP FROM THE FLOOR TO THE NEAR EMPTY COURTROOM HOSTING FOUR INDIVIDUALS.

ANNA sits at the defendant’s table looking around uncertainly, wearing only her pajama shorts and her boyfriend’s t-shirt.

PROSECUTOR walks across the room, dropping off a paper at the JUDGE’S STAND. She looks similar to Anna except her hair is neatly brushed and she is wearing a professional suit.

THE STENOGRAPHER sits on the other side of the room across from the jury. She looks nearly identical to ANNA, wearing glasses and a skirt.

THE COURT sits at JUDGE’S STAND shrouded in darkness as a hand grabs the paper from PROSECUTOR.

THE COURT
This is the matter of A Healthy Sleep Routine versus The Incriminating Thoughts in the Back of My Mind. Anna Bohn, you are being charged with Embarrassment of the First Degree. Should you be found guilty, you will be sentenced with the reminder of these moments for the rest of your life.

ANNA steps up to the witness stand.

PROSECUTOR
Could you state your name for the Record?

ANNA BOHN
Anna Bohn

PROSECUTOR
And can you explain your relationship to the case to The Court?

ANNA BOHN
I am the defendant? I’m not sure—I was just trying to go to bed—

PROSECUTOR
Yes, well now you’ve got quite the journey before you go to sleep.

ANNA BOHN
What is she doing here?

ANNA gestures to THE STENOGRAPHER who has stopped typing to look at ANNA.

THE COURT
She is here to record the events. How else do you think that you will remember everything that’s happening here? God, it’s like you don’t want a funny story to publish.

THE STENOGRAPHER types aggressively as THE COURT finishes speaking. ANNA eyes THE STENOGRAPHER.

THE COURT (CONT’D)
Prosecutor, continue.

PROSECUTOR
Do you recall what you did in the semester before you graduated eighth grade. You went on a high school shadow day.

ANNA BOHN
Yeah, I did.

PROSECUTOR
Anything interesting during P.E.? The class had to run a mile that day. What was before P.E.? Lunch?

ANNA’S face pales and PROSECUTOR smiles at her.

PROSECUTOR
So, what did you do, in front of an entire class of freshman at the high school you would be attending for the next four years?

ANNA BOHN
I threw up my lunch.

PROSECUTOR
Exactly.

PROSECUTOR gestures to the empty jury seats. ANNA looks around, questioning the motion as heavy silence falls over the three individuals.

ANNA BOHN
Okay and your point? Am I allowed to object? Why is this relevant to me getting some sleep?

THE COURT
Objection overruled. If you don’t want to be here, there’s Benadryl in your kitchen cabinet. Remember, you threw out your melatonin after you kept having weird dreams like that one where your boyfriend left you to fight space aliens. Prosecutor, you may proceed.

PROSECUTOR
Ms. Bohn, do you recall, also when you were in eighth grade, your class did a presentation on the Saints for the first graders? Do you remember when you self-diagnosed yourself with spoonerism after you introduced yourself to the first graders as Hairy Melon?

ANNA BOHN
I was Mary Helen–

PROSECUTOR
That’s not what you told the first graders. I think one or two of them laughed.

ANNA BOHN
I’m sure they don’t remember now–

PROSECUTOR
But you do. You also still remember in seventh grade, when you were the record-keeper for the basketball games hosted at the school. You fouled out the wrong player at the boys’ basketball game and then they lost. They yelled at you for weeks.

While ANNA starts to slump on the witness stand, PROSECUTOR paces up and down the room, her heels CLACKING with each step.

ANNA BOHN
I just want to sleep. I don’t understand why you feel the need to remind me of all these things.

Stepping forward from the shadows, THE COURT reveals herself to be the spitting image of ANNA who sits on the witness stand. Wearing the same cat-haired covered shirt, THE COURT pulls at the strands of hair sticking in her face and turns to GLARE at ANNA

THE COURT
You’re the one bringing these things up. Cooperate or I’ll find you in contempt and remind you of when, in your sophomore year of high school, you were having terrible period cramps and you decided it was okay to google search “why does my period make it hurt when I poop?” Even though you turned the brightness down on your phone, Hannah, sitting behind you, started laughing because she saw your screen.

ANNA stares at THE COURT with wide eyes. THE COURT turns to face PROSECUTOR who straightens up at her gaze. PROSECUTOR faces the empty jury seats as she begins to speak.

PROSECUTOR
Now, I want to bring your attention to that time you were four years old, living in Tennessee. You went to Walmart with the family. What was it your four-year-old heart desired?

ANNA BOHN
A Disney Princess video game.

PROSECUTOR
And what gaming console did you have to play it on?

ANNA BOHN
I didn’t have one.

PROSECUTOR
You were four, why would you? No, we still cringe every time we hear security alarms ring. Remember, we cried when we had to hand the game back to the security officer.

PROSECUTOR is pacing back and forth. THE STENOGRAPHER has stopped typing and watches as PROSECUTOR stops and realizes the room has gone silent.

ANNA BOHN
We?

PROSECUTOR
You!

PROSECUTOR blinks and adjusts her pantsuit jacket and brushes down her hair with her hands.

PROSECUTOR (CONT’D)
You were incompetent and you let it create a memory that has haunted you seventeen years later!

ANNA BOHN
I was naïve!

PROSECUTOR
Were you naïve in that college poetry workshop when you presented your poem about scraped knees and childhood innocence? You included a line about eating a popsicle, like children do, and your professor asked if it was meant to be phallic imagery. You nodded along because you didn’t know what phallic meant until you google searched it after class. That was a year ago, you don’t have the excuse of being four years-old for this.

ANNA BOHN
Am I supposed to know the descriptive word for penis? I’m pretty sure that’s not in everyone’s vocabulary.

PROSECUTOR
Forget vocabulary, what about common sense?

PROSECUTOR huffs and tucks her hair behind her ears.

ANNA BOHN
Can I just fall asleep now?

PROSECUTOR
You could, but then you might dream about the time your boyfriend’s mom walked in on the two of you having sex in his bed and even though he swears to this day that she doesn’t know, you know she knows because she’s a woman and she’s not dumb.

ANNA BOHN
She’s never brought it up-

PROSECUTOR
But she knows and you know it.

THE STENOGRAPHER
And now that you’ve brought this up, we can’t let dad see this because he still thinks we’re a virgin!

ANNA BOHN
He still thinks his mom’s a virgin!

PROSECUTOR
Neither of you are!

ANNA BOHN
I don’t see how any of this is relevant!

Anna stands up at the witness stand throwing her hands out. PROSECUTOR steps up and places her hands on the witness stand.

PROSECUTOR
That’s the point! None of this is! You’re trying to go to sleep and we’re all here as figments of your imagination reminding you of every embarrassing truth in your life! I’m here to remind you how much you’re embarrassed by yourself!

PROSECUTOR gestures to THE STENOGRAPHER who waves as ANNA leans over the stand to look at her.

PROSECUTOR (CONT’D)
She’s here to record all of this, so maybe you can turn these memories into something productive.

PROSECUTOR turns to face THE COURT who leans forward out of the shadows showing her displeased expression.

PROSECUTOR (CONT’D)
And she’s here to remind you that you are constantly judging your inability embrace your mistakes. Even your mind is set up to think every mistake you make declares you a failure. Forget Inside Out, it’s time for the split personalities in Anna’s mentally ill brain!

THE COURT
Prosecutor!

PROSECUTOR turns to face the court with a guilty expression on her face, knowing she’s gone too far.

THE COURT (CONT’D)
I think we’ve heard enough. It’s time for your closing argument.

PROSECUTOR turns around and walks back to her table, organizing her folders while she composes herself. She then turns to the empty jury seats.

PROSECUTOR
Ladies and gentlemen of Anna’s sleep-deprived mind. I want to thank you for your attention and severe judgement of Anna’s mistakes, and I hope you will be there to judge you in the future.

ANNA leans back in her seat and looks down on her shirt, plucking a cat hair off her shirt.

PROSECUTOR (CONT’D)
Before you make any further judgements, let me remind you of one thing: Anna is not perfect.

ANNA leans forward on the table, head in her palm ignoring the accusing finger PROSECUTER points her way and instead watches THE STENOGRAPHER type.

PROSECUTOR (CONT’D)
Everything that has happened in Anna’s life is a product of her ignorance and lack of desire to correct herself. Let’s forget about those times when she’s done something good and choose to focus on the bad moments in her life because without that, who will be there to keep her humbled?

Life is too short to sort through twenty-one years of this woman’s shit memory and filler thoughts just to find a few good moments to write about. None of that is publishable. We need the raw, gritty emotional moments to capture audiences! Not that happy moment she bought her own house at age twenty but that embarrassing time a guy pretended to want to date her just so he could get closer to her roommate!

ANNA threw out a thumbs down toward and stuck her tongue out.

PROSECUTOR CONT’D
Humankind is flawed and we need to accept it, highlight it, remember it. Because if we remember it, then we won’t make the same mistakes again. Unless you’re Anna.

People of the jury, I implore you to remember in those moments in which you are tired and have to wake up early in the morning, those moments in which you have made mistakes. I want you to take these moments and remember that they couldn’t be worse than Anna’s.

Jury, you need to hold her accountable for what she’s done, which is embarrassment of the first degree. Thank you, goodnight.

FADE TO BLACK.

END.

————

Anna Bohn is a graduate student at Northern Kentucky University who lives at the beck and call of her cat, Fishbait. When she is not trying to convince her boyfriend to adopt another cat, she is watching reruns of Twilight or writing essays on the sexuality of Emily Dickinson. Anna has been published in Northern Kentucky University’s creative writing magazine Loch Norse Magazine and Pentangle, the school’s literary journal.