Here I am, minding my own business when, suddenly, I find myself complicit in a crime.  I’d like to plead my innocence; outline my case for the defence, but I wonder if my testimony will pass muster in a court of law?

It’s lunchtime, I’m sitting in a pub, writing––if not this blog, another one.  A bloke––geezer, call him what you will––emerges from the toilet; approaches me.

“You haven’t got a pen I can borrow?”

It is hard to deny the request when he can see one clearly in my hand.

“Sure,” I reply, handing it over.

“I’m pranking a mate,” he confesses, before returning to the toilet.

Now, I could allow my imagination to run riot but, surely, given the evidence, the most likely way he intends to ‘prank his mate’ is to write something derogatory about him on the toilet wall?  What else are you going to do with a pen in a toilet? (Answers on a postcard (Ed.)).

Have I unwittingly become complicit in an act of graffiti?

Am I guilty of being an accessory before the fact?

Would a judge believe that I had no idea for what illicit purpose my pen was going to be used for when I handed it over?

The jury is out.

To give the bloke––geezer––his due, he did return the pen to me.

© Beery Sue

Beery Sue gets prepared to go on the run from justice.