Stealing a Meal (Aliara Cantrell)

[Sarina]

Like Sarina had expected the woman got offended, overly offended in Sarina’s opinion. Calling Sarina a snob and rightfully so she angrily stuffed the food back where it had been previously stored. The woman’s eyes boarded hole in Sarina as she glared yelling at her some more.

“Of course I know people are starving to death, yourself included if you keep giving you food away, but I am not one of them so I am not about to sink so such levels.” She smiled coldly. The woman threw her arms up in the air, spinning around and muttering aggressively under her breath. Sarina had to admit she had not expected such an extravagant response to her refusal. It was as if this woman didn’t understand that she was getting more by Sarina refusing to take her food, regardless of her motives.

The woman continued her scolding this time stating that is was a ‘nice gesture’ as if that made any difference. Whether it was to be kind or in order to get Sarina to leave it didn’t matter if she refused it. She made it sound like by not taking the food Sarina was greatly offending the people who were dying from starvation. She couldn’t understand how this woman was drawing that conclusion. Sarina was allowing her to have more food; she would have thought it to be ruder to take it from her.

“I’m sure it was.” Sarina said responding to the ‘nice gesture’ comment. “And I’m sure you’ll be thinking about how rude my decline was while you’re eating that and not starving, yourself. Evidently you have yet to understand that giving away food is going send you to an early grave. Why don’t you think about that next time you try to give away you food?”Sarina’s face was stern and questioning this time.

Sarina took a deep breath. She was getting too worked up about this issue. It didn’t matter much anyway. She needed to keep her calm. The problem was the woman’s strange and very uncommon selflessness. It didn’t make any sense to Sarina and she wanted, needed, to figure it out. Often when she needed to figure something out it would aggravate her. Taking another deep breath she waited for the woman’s response, hoping it would shed some light on the motivation for her ‘nice gesture’.

[Aliara Cantrell]

Date

A good gesture was all it was but now Aliara was questioning why she did it? To stop her from stealing from someone who needed it. Food was tight and a thief couldn’t leave someone with half of their food anymore it would be nothing more than a crust and in some other cases it would be a simple crumb. Chewing over the thoughts in her head Aliara looked back at the woman before her.

“Because it stops you from depriving someone else in a time of need,”

Sunberth had been hit hard during the food shortage and many of the elderly had passed or just given up knowing that in this harsh town no charity existed and you couldn’t depend on other people because where does one find those people? Aliara rubbed her hands together and spoke
.
“In this city you can’t depend on other people sure but its different when your depriving them from a need such as food, yes you might be starving but so are they! And by them having food does not mean that they are breaking your base needs but you are if you steal…”

It had dawned upon her, that is why she hadn’t taken anyone else’s food, she had tried but never managed to. How could she personally be responsible for someone possibly dying because she had taken someone else’s food?

.

[Aliara Cantrell]

Date

A good gesture was all it was but now Aliara was questioning why she did it? To stop her from stealing from someone who needed it. Food was tight and a thief couldn’t leave someone with half of their food anymore it would be nothing more than a crust and in some other cases it would be a simple crumb. Chewing over the thoughts in her head Aliara looked back at the woman before her.

“Because it stops you from depriving someone else in a time of need,”

Sunberth had been hit hard during the food shortage and many of the elderly had passed or just given up knowing that in this harsh town no charity existed and you couldn’t depend on other people because where does one find those people? Aliara rubbed her hands together and spoke
.
“In this city you can’t depend on other people sure but its different when your depriving them from a need such as food, yes you might be starving but so are they! And by them having food does not mean that they are breaking your base needs but you are if you steal…”

It had dawned upon her, that is why she hadn’t taken anyone else’s food, she had tried but never managed to. How could she personally be responsible for someone possibly dying because she had taken someone else’s food?

.

[Sarina]

Sarina frowned as the woman continued to preach her philosophy. Did she think she could make me change? It didn’t matter because she wasn’t the first one to try and preach this philosophy into Sarina. Her parents had been fairly keen on some of the same arguments and Sarina was living proof at how well that had works.

Sarina sighed as the woman’s voice trailed off. “Are you done?” She didn’t wait for an answer before she continued. She felt a extreme need to explain herself but pushed that aside with a deep breath, it would only show to cloud her judgment. “Believe whatever you like but I wouldn’t be surprised if you die before the end of this food shortage.” She could have left it at that but instead decided to continue. “There isn’t much food. You need to understand that, it’s not like by being nice or good magically get food. Grow up, this isn’t a fairy tale.”

With that Sarina turned and began to make her way down the street. She noted numerous people looking at her and her partner and realized that her voice must have risen louder than she intended. She swore under her breath before glared at a few of them, each one turning away as she made eye contact. Gradually she began to regain her composure.

She striated her back, and tilted her chin up ever so slightly. She slowed the pace of her walk and began to swing her arms by her side, untwisting them from where they had been crossed in front of her chest. Her stomach growled a subtle reminder that she was wasting valuable time. She needed to get food and talking to this over zealously good woman was only hindering her process. Despite that she half expected the woman to follow her. With that expectation in mind she began to culminate arguments she could give to the woman when she came, if indeed she did.