Death Sentence..!

It was a day before Earth Day, and in the International Court of Justice, there was a stomping of little feet and raising of childlike voices. The Judge lifted his gavel and brought it down, not once, not twice but a dozen times, but the angry din didn’t die down a bit. “Order!” Order!” he said wearily rising from his seat and some calm was restored.

A moment later the sounds became worse. “Killers!” cried the children in the courtroom, as the long line of defendants were led to their box.

“Murderers!” shouted the same children, their shrieking shrill voices rising in crescendo.

“Destroyers!”

“Butchers!”

“Order! Order!” said the Judge, as he turned his angry glance at the parents of the children in the defendants box. They were all trying to put on a brave face, but their lawyer knew it was a lost case.

“You may start!” said the Judge kindly to the lawyer who represented the Children of the World and all the children in the International Courtroom cheered as their young lawyer got up, but the next moment as they looked at the faces of their own parents, they started their angry booing again, waving their little fists at the adults standing with forlorn faces.

“Your honor, these men and women in the dock are murderers and killers!” shouted the young lawyer.

“They are your parents and relatives,” said the Judge to the children.

“They have desecrated our inheritance!” shouted the children some of whom were weeping ceaselessly.

“What charges have you against all the accused?” asked the Judge.

“That they,” said the lawyer reading from a list, “have knowingly misused this their earth they were given to use for a limited period of time, and, have through pollution and waste, emissions and environmental mishandling, made this planet a place unfit for these their children to live in.”

“What evidence do you have?” asked the Judge.

“Floods!

“Unseasonal rains!”

“Epidemics!” shouted children.

“Tsunamis!” shouted a child from Asia.

“Heat waves!”

“Global warming!”

“Dried rivers!”

“Shrinking oceans!”

“Order, order!” shouted the Judge finally, “You say that all this has been caused because these people never took care of their planet?”

“Yes your honour!”

“What do you plead?” asked the Judge looking at the accused, who stood trembling. Adults all of them in the age group of fifty and above.

“We plead guilty your honour!”

“Guilty of destroying planet Earth leased to you for your lifetimes?”

“Yes your honour!”

The Judge turned to the lawyer who represented the children, “And what punishment do you seek?”

“Death!” shouted all the children, “Death!” and even as they shouted the Judge heard the sickening sounds of wheezing and coughing from an unhealthy generation.

The Judge looked wearily out of the window, and whispered, “The sentence is death. But it is not I who have passed this sentence, but Mother Earth herself.”

There was no weeping or crying in the courtroom as the accused were led away..!”