Shorts

December 10, 2013 at 1:39 pm

Original Fiction: No Honor Amongst Thieves

By
http://www.thechiefly.com/reads/shorts/original-fiction-honor-amongst-thieves/

An Untrue Autobiography.

My name is Hester Brown. I was born in Jerusalem before computers to a father who worked with his hands. My mother didn’t speak, not because she couldn’t, she simply chose not to. My father was very influential in my upbringing. I remember one distinct incident. We walked together and he saw a man sleeping beside the road, huddled under blankets and cardboard. It was winter and the cold air had a way of making your bones ache. My father approached the man as if he were an old friend. They spoke for a few moments, my father offered the man some bread from his bag. They said goodbye and we continued home.

For the next two weeks my dad spent his days visiting the man from the side of the road. From before the sun came up, until sunset, the two were together. My father was a skilled wood worker and constructed a small house for the man. It was not luxurious nor was it equipped with plumbing, but it kept the rain off of him at night when he slept. It also kept the cold from clinging to his bones in the winter. A short while later, the old man from the side of the road died. My father was the one who found him – he hung from the rafters of the small house. Below him on the ground was a pile of moist cardboard and blankets. He left a note for my father. It read:

“I’ve become accustomed to the cold on my bones. A shiver is a part of me just as my arms are a part of me. While I am grateful for the sun, I must admit that I prefer the rain.”

My father never talked about the old man or the house again. In fact, like my mother, my father never spoke after the day he found the old man hanging in the small house.

I worked with sheep as an adolescent, but I was never a Sheppard. I looked after them and made sure they were always fed and watered. I’d sheer them and sell the wool to buy bread and meat. My parents moved before I was fully grown, they never said where to. I learned fast that there was more to the world than looking after sheep. I created problems for myself with gambling. Though I won often, one can never win always. Gambling was the cause for losing my sheep.

Without parents or family, I learned my ways from crooks and thieves. I learned enough to survive for eight years, stealing bread to quiet the roar in my stomach. I repaid thieves for lessons by using their own slight of hand against them. There was never honor among thieves, nor will there ever be. People of my province knew me not for my face or brain; they only knew to clutch their belongings tight when I was around. I once was the watcher of many sheep, now I sleep amongst the wolves.

Each time I stole, it pushed me closer to the edge, from sheep to wolf. True friends I can name without parting my lips. I am not deserving of what life has brought me. Things have changed. For many years I slept beside the road, covered in cardboard and blankets. I was a good thief. Not a noble thief, but a good thief. I swindled enough to make a fair living, much more than any blacksmith or fish peddler could make justly. I stole from bankers and jewelers and even surpassed their income. I lived amongst the sheep, yet my knack had always been howling with the wolves. I found no joy in being a thief, but it kept the pain out of my stomach and the cold off my bones. When one only takes, there will always be a hole left from lack of giving. This was a hole, which for me would never be filled.

Editor’s addition:

Hester brown was found dead, hanging in his large, empty house. Beneath him lay a pile of damp cardboard and blankets. He left a short note. It read:

“I’ve become accustomed to the cold on my bones. A shiver is a part of me just as my arms are a part of me. While I am grateful for the sun, I must admit that I prefer the rain. There will never be honor amongst thieves.”

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