Rebecca Fisseha, Writer.

I’ve popped mine with the Maple Tree Literary Supplement, where my short story The Twelfth Juror is now published in Issue # 18.

The story was inspired as much by my immediate present of living near 361 University as by my distant past of working server jobs, my even more distant past of witnessing the 1991 government changeover in Ethiopia, and road trips both taken and imagined.

A little teaser…

Every night, after finishing her job cleaning offices in the towers of the financial district, Erica would walk all the way up University Avenue to the twenty-four hour Tims by St. Patrick station. Along the way, she would pass the courthouse at 361 University. Outside the courthouse there is a monument titled ‘Pillars of Justice’. Eleven paper cutout-shaped male and figures stand facing each other, six on the north side, and five on the south side. The plaque in front says that the twelfth empty place among them is reserved for Erica, to symbolize her participation in the legal system as a person of the community. Though her body would be sweaty and grimy from cleaning so many offices and her stomach hungry for her Tims breakfast of double sugar steeped tea and apple fritter, Erica would always stop at this monument and climb the three steps to stand for a few moments in her reserved place. If she timed it right, she could catch what few rays of sunrise filtered to her through the gaps between City Hall and the Eaton Centre and the Marriott and Ryerson University to the east. She would stand there for a few minutes, before the hunger became too much, ruminating on an imagined case and the imagined guilt or innocence of the accused. (Read the rest)

Thank you to Amatoritsero Ede and the rest of the MTLS editorial team.