A/N: A not-a-microfiction rewrite of The Attorney and the Child, submitted to the Northern Illinois Big 12 Literary Festival. This piece won first place in the Short Fiction category.

In new news: I am publishing my first book! In the next few months, as I prepare to graduate from high school, I will be compiling some poems and short stories that I have uploaded here (including this one) and putting them together into a portfolio of sorts. This might mean that I might have to take a good number of my stories down, but depending on what advice I get, I might not have to. I'll be sure to keep you guys updated!

"I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways...from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."

— Theodore Parker

I met Kronos again today. It was eight in the morning and the café was bustling, as women in clacking heels and men in thudding brogues lined up for espressos before work. I sat alone near the front, the window's sun warm on the sleeves of my blazer. Whenever someone came or went through the nearby door, a bell would ring brightly, a cool breeze would wash over me, and I would sip my latte. Then, once again, I would rest my hands on my laptop, find the ridges above F and J, and continue with my work.

The case wasn't easy. A poor teen had shot a stranger on the street, and without me, would be next in line for death. I typed on.

But at some point, something shifted; two fingers pinched the fabric of the universe and tugged. Just enough to sense. Not enough to identify. I hesitated in the middle of a sentence, pulling out my headphones. Nothing sounded amiss; people chatted over their drinks or into their phones, busy feet shuffled, the baristas took orders and rushed to pour things between cups and machines and back again. Little smelled amiss; just the lingering char of a muffin left in too long, but which was masked by coffee beans. One thing felt amiss, but it was my opaque black glasses, sliding down my nose until pushed up again. And nothing looked amiss, because I saw nothing but darkness. A good thing — my glasses were doing their job.

Still on edge, I returned to my work, slipping my headphones back in. "Read page six," I spoke softly into the microphone. Through the headphones, my computer began to read my typed document in a man's stilted monotone. I reached for my coffee, sliding my hand slowly across the table so that I wouldn't knock over my cup.

Then the table shifted and I jerked back. Even before he spoke, I recognized him. I would know that mouth-breathing anywhere.

"You're picking up cases again," said Kronos.

He had pulled up a chair right across from me and leaned his whole body against the table as if he owned the place; I didn't need to see to know that he was throwing his weight around again. Pointedly, I reached to my computer and turned up the volume, letting the droning voice of my screen reader drown him out — until Kronos reached forward and closed the screen of my laptop, clipping my fingertips.

"Defense?"

He paused for affirmation I'd never give before continuing anyway. He reeked of false pity and sulfur.

"For a kid in the ghetto, playing with guns. No money. No lawyer. No justice."

It was a fist around my heart, clenching hard, wringing it out. "Someone had to."

"But did it have to be you?" he asked. "You, the lawyer who has never lost a case? How is that a fair trial?"

The fist tightened. I wanted to say that there was no room in the system for "fair". Public defenders had it hard as it was; if I let this case fall to one of them, my client would be in prison by the end of the day. Through no fault of their own. My client had everything against him. But it wasn't "fair" to them either, and I knew I could not just watch from the gallery. I could never explain it.

The table tilted again. Kronos leaned closer, his cold fingers brushing my cheek.

"You know how often it happens, Themis," he whispered. "I can see it. Natural law crumbles at your feet, mortals execute by the millions, time runs the course that it always has. And you're stalling. With a single boy."

"He has a daughter," I snapped.

At once, the world paused. The clacking of shoes, the clinking of mugs, the chatting of customers — all went silent. "What are you doing?" I started to ask, but then I felt his wet, rancid breath on my face, and before I could say a word, my glasses slid off my nose.

Reflexively, my eyes flew open. Then I reeled back, blinking against the sunlight pouring through the café window, gaping at the frozen faces of the people around me. They stared at their screens and their coffee, oblivious. One at the counter glared at his watch. Another at a table was locked in her compact mirror. A last man in the corner drowned in the news, obscured by a headline in bold: ALL OUR HOPE IS LOST.

Kronos leaned too close over the table, my glasses in his hand. For the first time in eons, I got a good look at him; he had barely changed. The same salt-and-pepper hair, creased mouth, and forgettable face. He wore a fine white suit, marked only by a smudge of black char on one shoulder. He was smiling.

"I preferred the blindfold," he mused. "Harder to take off."

My face burning, I snatched the glasses back. "You have no more power than I do. Go back to Tartarus where you belong or I'll send you there myself."

For that second, Kronos met my gaze. His eyes were wrinkled around the corners, but unnaturally bright, glittering with something youthful, something controlling, something divine, something I hadn't seen since he swallowed his children whole. I didn't want to look at it any longer, but I didn't want to break the stare either. He wanted to win.

"Justice is dead," said he, "and was reborn as a demagogue."

When I blinked, he was gone. There were sounds again, and scents, and sights; mortals moved about the café as if nothing had happened. All that remained of him was a whiff of sulfur and a scattering of ashes on the table before me.

My hands unsteady, I swept the ashes away, sat down, and put my dark glasses on again. Blinding myself.

Just a second later, the door opened, ringing the bell and letting a cool breeze brush my cheek. A forlorn pair of sneakers shuffled towards me.

"Miss…Themis?"

The boy's voice was soft. Still high, cracking with youth, innocent. My client. Carefully, I told him to sit, folded my hands around my lukewarm coffee, and offered to buy one for him. He said no and then fell quiet.

Putting my headphones aside, I opened my laptop. I had no questions to ask. I had been watching this case since the shots had been fired. He was eighteen; his daughter, two. They had been walking to the aquarium to celebrate her birthday, and he was exhausted from both of his jobs, so he set her down to rub his eyes.

Then came the stranger, grabbing the little girl. The threat. The struggle. The gunshot. The silence.

My client whispered, "I'm going to die."

I inhaled. In a different age, Kronos would be right. I should be less soft. I knew the law of this land better than the fingers that had first scrawled it on rotting yellow paper, fingers that thought they were the gods of justice, but had two eyes apiece. Eyes that thought they could see who was right, and who was wrong, and who was slave, and who was free. Eyes that ran the remains of the world today. In a different era, I would accept my own failing — the failing of natural law, of ultimate justice, of the moral universe — and surrender, just as Kronos had, to let the human race run its downward course. It wasn't too late. I could walk out on my client, I could return to Olympus, and I could fade away in peace.

But in this era, I closed my laptop and reached out. A long moment passed before the boy let me hold both of his warm, work-worn hands, and I squeezed them gently as I thought. I could feel his pulse, fluttering. Temporary. Insignificant. Ensnared by injustice; doomed to die.

And then, I told him, "You won't."