Pena Detentiva

The afternoon of February 22nd, 2019 was one that will live in infamy in the Thomas household. Mr. Jeff Thomas and Mrs. Mary Thomas, two upstanding members of the local community, who were involved with philanthropies, PTA meetings and influential boards that could effect change in an instant, were again humiliated by their middle child. He was now a 16 year old punk by the name of Paul.

The Thomas' eldest and youngest children, Peter and Luke, were well on a track to success. Peter was an 18 year old gentleman that had just been accepted to Princeton, the alma mater of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, and was getting ready to graduate with another 4.0 semester, in addition to finishing his term as student body president of George Washington High. Luke was a 14 year old soccer prodigy that already been offered a scholarship to Stanford University to further his athletic and academic career. Paul, however, is best described as the stain from dinner that one would get on their brand new white shirt.

The date of February 22nd, 2019 marked the day that Paul committed his most dastardly deed, which consisted of stealing his neighbor Mr. Turcotte's car and driving it into a lake before escaping the vehicle himself. Paul's rap sheet was as long as a receipt from a middle class family shopping at Costco, which consisted of pickpocketing, trespassing, vandalism, disturbing the peace and now grand theft auto and larceny.

This incident felt different to the Thomas parents, as they heard that their son's case would handled by Judge Virgil. This was a man notorious for handing down harsh sentences. It appeared as if the Thomas family fortune would not be enough to bail their son out of trouble this time. Paul was to be held, without bail, until his court date of February 26th.

On that fateful day, Paul, wanting his parents to show an interest in him, decided to go against his legal counsel of 3 of the city's finest and most successful lawyer and plead guilty to the crime, which was not part of the Thomas family plan. Judge Virgil, a warm-looking man in his early 60's, was very familiar with the Thomas family, most specifically Jeff and Mary. Judge Virgil saw something in the look on Paul's face and his actions that warranted something he did not easily give or show in his rulings; leniency. Judge Virgil had realized that he saw a lot of himself as a teenager in Paul and thought about all of the unwarranted second chances in life that he had received. So instead of sending Paul to a juvenile detention center until the age of 18, and then paying a fine of $25,000 to the Turcotte family, Paul, or more aptly his parents, would replace the vehicle of the Turcotte family, and then accompany Judge Virgil to a federal penitentiary, a rehabilitation center and then a charitable foundation to learn from his mistakes and put him on the proper path to redemption, one that would be full of learning, hardship and self-discovery.

After discussing at length with his parents and legal counsel, it was decided that the deal was more than fair, given the circumstances, and that Paul would carry out his sentence that weekend on February 28th. Afterwards at home, Paul got yelled at and had many conversations with his parents about his actions and how lucky he was to have received this sentence, but all of that didn't matter to Paul because he had gotten what he wanted from the incident; a little attention from his busy parents.

Bibliography: Alighieri, Dante, and Mark Musa. Dante Alighieri's Divine comedy. Bloomington: Indiana U.P., 1996.

Author's Note: This story mostly serves as an exposition to the real meat of the story, which will come in the next three installments that will come in the following weeks. In Dante's Divine Comedy, there is no direct parallel to this exact portion of the story, since stories two, three, and four will mirror Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise respectively. Because of this, I feel like this will be the portion where I had to be the most creative in the construction of the story as a whole for this portion of my storybook project. I had to envision a scenario where I could have a modern person have this journey of self-awareness and this age that parallels the religious experience that Dante is undergoing with his guide Virgil in the 14th century. Thus the character of Paul, named after one of Jesus' disciples, was born. The circumstances in this story will allow Paul to experience a similar fate as Dante, visiting a federal penitentiary, where punishment is carried out, a rehabilitation center, where people are prepared to enter the world as a person free of their vices, and a charitable foundation, where people are at peace with themselves are called to a higher purpose of helping others and enjoying being a person of character. This is unlikely to be a prison sentence in real life, but illustrating the consequences of life to others is a great impetus to change the type of person they are. This version of this story is one that has a less religious view, but is still important in the context of morality in the modern age.

Image Info: A picture of a court room that perhaps Paul could have been sentenced in. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Victorian_Civil_Courtroom,_National_Justice_Museum,_June_2010.jpg