The room was pitch black, but I could still

The room was pitch black, but I could still feel his warm breath on my face. Tear streamed down my face as I wondered whether my sin was great enough for the punishment before me.

"Your sin," a voice boomed from the darkness, "is the worst of all sins! You shall receive just punishment!" I wished for the umpteenth time that I knew what my sin was.

I tossed the soggy tissue onto the growing mound, rolled over and went to sleep. The next day, that mysterious, judgmental entity finally got around to punishing me. To start with

I had to clean the bathrooms. And there were a lot of bathrooms. I thought that would be my only punishment, harsh as it was, but the mysterious, judgemental entity was not done.

No, apparently, part of this program of staying off booze also requires me to make my bed. What a crock but while the judgmental entity watched me I had to pretend to be really

clean and tidy, although I did spend a lot of time staring at this strange creature that had invaded my room and wondering whether "judgy" was a real word. At least the neighbors

never suspected, for the creature looked just like a Judge Wappner playtoy. They never knew. I tugged on his pullstring whenever I needed a judgement. The Judge said "Clean up your

Plate and leave no scraps of chicken for the dogs." I reluctantly did so, knowing it would give me indigestion. I would have preferred ratatouille. The Judge was pleased and rubbed

my nose in the shit again. "Your sentence is almost over, isn't it", he asked me. "Even up on my bench I can hear that period coming; the end of your sentence. Sometimes I imagine

the order of someone else's words forming in their head and swirling on the tip of their tongue before the actually speak. It's like I can see the letters inside their brain. Wow!