* (♛) Greed ▬▬▬

I had no possessions. Everything was always taken away. I had never had something of my own. When I was little, my toys were taken away at my slightest misbehaviour. In my middle school years, my friends were taken away, betraying me; betraying me with all the trust and secrets I held with them. And in my high school years, everything disappeared from my grasp. Not even a single hand or smile was given to me to lead the way for me.

The last thing that has been taken away from me that will never be given back is my family. They weren’t exactly taken away, more like they took themselves away from me. I can still see their malicious smirks as they left me. As if it had just happened recently, it was still clear in my mind.

Time doesn’t seem to favour me. No matter how long I wait, nothing comes back to me. Once something left my fingertips, it will never come back again, even after an eternity. I’m the opposite of the world. People want more, they take more, and they don’t even pay attention to others. They want fame, popularity, money, houses, clothes, and precious jewels. But all I need is someone or something that I can trust, that I can rely on, that will never betray even at the worst times of my life.

I can still remember waiting endlessly for the beautiful cherry blossom tree to bloom again; for it to open up its god-like aura and listen to me. But it didn’t. It slowly started to shrivel up, rotting into the grass that also starting to dry up. It was just like my life, shrivelled and worthless. Each night, I prayed to myself, as no one else listened to me. I prayed to myself that the tree would get better; that the tree would be healed; that the tree would smile to me again.

I dragged myself to the big apple farm a few kilometres away from my home. My stomach grumbled, begging me for food. I slowly gathered the slightly rotten apples on the ground. Good, they are still a bit fresh, a good haul, I thought to myself.

I knew stealing was selfish. I knew stealing wouldn’t solve any problems. But if had to survive, to live on, to find the meaning of life, I was forced to do this sin.  I picked up the last apple, and carefully examined it; polished skin, perfectly round and a stunning crimson red. It was breathtaking. As I brought it to my basket, I carefully stacked it at the top. Stealing; this crime… as I kept thinking, it was as if the apple was glaring at me.

It’s polished, red skin simply shone. It was as if it was telling me: ‘You are not worth my perfection. Only money can buy my happiness.’ I could almost hear the words it uttered in my mind. The basket dropped from my hands; as I looked down, I gasped in shock. Perfect, polished, red apples fell out. Where? Where were the rotten apples? Was this really my doing? Was I really that greedy that my greed for perfect things simply spilled out?

I’m not worth it. I left the all the flawless apples on the ground and starved that night. How could I have turned all those rotten apples into such flawless apples? Was I so greedy that I even imagined such things? I kept thinking to myself. I didn’t deserve to live. I didn’t deserve to even waste this world’s space. I was just a pathetic waste of space. And as long as I was alive, I was a sin to the world.