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The little things you steal

We do not steal. We, the common people.

It is the Politicians, the Clergy, the actual robbers that steal. For us, stealing is a foreign concept. We do not steal. We have our things stolen from us.

If anything, we get. Without the owner's consent, or even knowledge. Sometimes, they might not even remember that they had something which they cannot remember anymore.

Say a book...

I have a library. A small growing library that is growing at a snail's pace. Still, it is my library.

I used to have books. In stock. A few classic titles and, of course, my favorites that some might not even have heard of. And, titles that I only boasted of or had found them in my patient moments at the DAPP Library which was in the trade fair. Now, it is closed.

I used to have Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner in my library. Now, it can only be traced in my memory.

Somebody helped himself to it and, I can only pray, somebody also helped herself to it from him.

It is as if, they stole nothing. Those people.

Some, when I meet them and remind of a book they set free from my small library, they laugh. That rude mocking laughter. You would be forgiven to think I ask them with my zippers open; the whatevers that those zippers had to hide, exposed.

For them, they stole nothing. They just got what they think I had no use for.

Some of such people, unsurprisingly, are in the forefront castigating politicians, the clergy and people like them for doing something they did. Stealing!

I, personally, value books and stealing them is as good as stealing my tax. I am, actually, somehow used to the politicians and robbers like them stealing my tax -- with no violence. My books, however, I am not used to having them stolen. Either through the use of pleas, arguments or otherwise. They are my books.

So, this is a call to those of you who won't read this post but still keep my books which you stole with violence. Yes, that violence...that sweet tongue you used to get my book because you needed it for an academic assignment is violence. It was the gun with which you used as a weapon against my unassuming kindness.

You, who used violence, may your conscience bother you until you remember to return my books. Or, stop crying wolf when politicians rob from you. Have you not heard of Karma?

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