Judgment Moment

He could see through the faint frost on the window pane that the city in the afternoon rain had turned into a charcoal sketch of varying shades of gray with, here and there, streaks of deathly white and smudges of bloodied red. And each word that the magistrate slowly uttered sounded remote and dull like raindrops falling into a dark, deep well, stirring a susurrus that chilled and scared his heart that jackhammered his chest declaring: beyond reasonable doubt, guilty!