As a child I used to sometimes mindlessly wander into a shop, take something I liked off the shelf and walk out again, until an adult would stop me. Without concept of possession, how are you supposed to know what is theirs and what is mine?
So it never happened as an adult. Too great was the fear to get stopped by anyone. Or is it rather embarrassment which keeps us from taking what isn’t ours?
It so happened that an alcoholic camped outside my door one day. For worry that he might die – of whatever in the height of spring, I informed an ambulance who instantly argued their value of time with me on the phone.
When they came, it was with reluctance. A scene they had seen far too often before and had no taste for wanting to see again.
He was loaded onto a stretcher, and I had hoped they’d also put him into one of these white jackets but they must have run out of them, so he just lay there, babbling nonsense.
Curious I went out to watch closer (there is only so far watching from a window takes you). Within a few minutes the spectacle was over. Whatever experience can do with time.
Before they shut the doors and gave me a contempt stare I took out a diary from his bag, and handed the meager left overs to them. Off they went. Quietly.
In a vulnerable moment I took his life into my hands, quire literally. I knew it wouldn’t hold much sense but creating an Achilles heel within a god, I couldn’t resist.
And anyway, it didn’t feel like stealing. It was mine because I was in it. I was part of the yellowed pages, the filthy ink and the thoughts that smelled like dog piss in the street. It was me, that’s why the diary is mine.