What is the color of fire? Red? They said red is the first color of beginning, the real color of spring and rebirth. The first color that ushered Amopha into the beginning of her life was one with the fiery tips. It had crawled into her home, uncurling itself through the dry hush of silence, seeking meaning and recognition. It snapped at the first thing it saw which contained it; a cylinder which led it out as it began to unfold with such dangerous gracefulness. A gracefulness that kept spreading like a secret until everything Amopha knew as a child was turned into ash and memory. It had swallowed her chance at being a social butterfly and had reduced her to an isolated introvert. She had known what hell looked like even from the timid lens of a child. She had dreamt several times of her parents dancing in the flames; her father's voice, a sonorous languishing crescendo; her name bouncing at the tip of her mother's burnt tongue. Their eyes bearing the flames that engulfed them. It the aftermath of that flame that burnt her confidence to ashes when she tried to talk freely with Louis. Sarah had more better chance since she was so desperate for a man. But she, she was dealing with a childhood trauma that tied her tongue and hands together and that even when she talked, she was never open ended. To Louis, she was a book filled diverse questions left unfolded. And so, it was a surprise to her when she spoke with her tongue tied at a departmental debate. Maybe it was because her thoughts were sidelined to a particular topic or that she kept facing the ceiling then the ground occasionally to avoid people's stares. Whatever it was, she was uncertain and wasn't ready to be less tentative. Her speech which was the last was followed by an applause she sucked in even as she daintily went back to her seat. To her, people's claps were not a accolade, but an admonishment that everyone expects a lot from you. She didn't want to be that person. She didn't want to battle with an impostor syndrome, she didn't want to look like an academic monument that everyone felt was unbreakable. At a point when the president was addressing the audience, she got riveted to the ground when she sighted Louis coming towards the podium. The president had invited him to make a remark on the debate.
"Good day, students of the department of management and accounting. The president might have already introduced me but I feel it's proper I introduce myself. My name is …
"Louis Chandler!!!" the crowd hollered before Louis could finish his statement. Amopha could sight Sarah screaming in the crowd. She had remembered trying to coax her to come for the debate; Sarah only agreed when she heard Louis Chandler might make an appearance.
"Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here. I must say I am really surprised to see accounting students engaging in an intellectual tug of words. I thought all you guys knew were how to calculate figures" Louis said as everyone chuckled "You never seem to dazzle me but I'm not yet satisfied"
It seemed a cloud of silence engulfed the hall just at the drop of Louis's last sentence. What did he mean he wasn't satisfied? Amopha asked within herself.
"Mr. President" Louis said turning towards the president "Allow me to test your debaters"
Amopha's heart began to palpitate. She could sense anxiety from the rest of her colleagues just by staring at them. At this point, she wished she was just a spectator in the crowd being grateful that she wasn't one of the participants. At this point, she didn't mind her president telling Louis that his participants couldn't handle whatever question Louis was about to throw to them. She didn't even mind being portrayed as a student of low IQ.
"Go ahead sir" the president said as Amopha subconsciously swallowed a lump
"Truth and justice are two interesting concepts when it comes to upholding the law . I'm stating this because you all are citizens of a legal system which operates by these two concepts. Justice," he continued, "is not a place for sentimentality. It is a system built on truth, upheld by facts, not feelings. Mercy may soothe the heart, but it cannot rewrite what is real. When we allow emotion to cloud verdicts, we dilute accountability. Truth is the spine of justice. Without it, we fall. Does anyone agree with me? You are free to argue against me".
For a while, no one said anything. Amopha could see that her president stood with his hand cupping his mouth. She didn't agree with his school of thought and knew she needed to say something . Louis looked around, already getting discouraged from the total silence. Then…
"Good day, my fellow students" she said with the faintest smile, " Mr. President and other reputable executives, my distinguished audience." Turning to face Louis, she bowed " Your honor. Truth is not always pure. Nor is it always complete. People carry truths they cannot say. They suffer injustices they cannot prove. Mercy listens where truth has no voice. It fills in the silence of broken systems. Sometimes, what justice needs most… is not a verdict. It's healing."
The room went still. Louis looked at her, this time not as an opponent, but as a man hearing a truth of his own. Something in her words—maybe the way she spoke—tugged at a place he'd kept hidden too.
"You speak of healing, Miss Amopha. But where do we draw the line? If mercy overrules consequence, do we not open the gates for harm? Justice may not be kind, but it must be clear.
Amopha didn't know what got to her when she met his gaze. Her eyes fixated in his charming hazel eyes
"And yet," she replied, "there are lives that never make it to clarity. People condemned not by what they did, but by what was done to them. Truth punishes. Mercy remembers."
There it was—the spark. Not of competition, but connection. Two minds, two wounds, brushing in dialogue. Louis didn't speak again for a long moment. He sat, and this time when he looked at Amopha, it was with something different in his eyes. The hall was still by the tension that had erupted between the two opponents. Amopha, stood firm both on her feet and on her assertions, Louis sat overwhelmed by a new school of thought from a fresher he just met few months ago.
Sarah raised her hand with theatrical urgency, her voice slicing through the atmosphere like a mismatched chord. Amopha, on hearing her voice creased her brows nervously. What on earth was Sarah going to say now? She thought inwardly
"Excuse me," she said, rising without waiting to be called, her tone smug, "but I think we're all forgetting something. Justice isn't about truth or mercy—it's about winning. You don't get ahead in life by being soft. You win by being smart. Mercy is weakness. And truth? It's just a weapon—whoever sharpens it best wins."
A murmur rippled through the room. Some turned to glance at her, others just blinked in awkward silence. Louis arched an eyebrow, the kind of look he reserved for witnesses who missed the point entirely.
"Miss Sarah," he said slowly, "this isn't a contest of ambition. We're talking about the moral spine of a legal system—not personal strategy." He added, with faint irony, "Justice isn't a ladder you climb. It's a scale you balance."
Sarah, undeterred, laughed lightly. It seemed she wasn't giving up that easily "Well, in the real world, balance is overrated. You either play the game or you get played."
The president subtly cleared his throat, an attempt to steer the discussion back on track. But the damage was done. Then Amopha, who hadn't spoken since her last point, turned and spoke quietly—but her words cut through like clean glass.
"If justice becomes a game," she said, without looking at Sarah, "then we've already lost those who need it most."
The audience clapped. Louis gave a slow, deliberate nod. Sarah sat down, flustered, pretending to check her phone—but the redness creeping up her neck betrayed the truth: she had tried to dominate a conversation rooted in conviction with a performance based on ego. And it had failed.