<p>Status: Accepted
Comments: I really liked my setup for the essay. I don’t like the essay as much now, but I like the style. (& I hate that I noticed the spelling errors! UGH.)</p>
<p>& Don’t even think about stealing this (if you’d even want to bother) ;)</p>
<p>Q: How did you get caught? (Or not caught, as the case may be.)</p>
<p>A boy and his mother had gone to the supermarket, and were now waiting in the queue. A boy, at the tender age of four, had been fidgeting with a horoscope, something entirely new to him, when suddenly the mother whisked him out of the store in a hurry. They rushed towards the car, and started to drive off in a desperate need to go home.</p>
<p>As I adjusted to the sudden calm after the storm, I had then realized as we were driving that I still held the horoscope in my palm.</p>
<p>The boy grew deathly pale, as his hands began to sweat. How could he have taken it? Stolen it? The boy became increasingly worried, as if something dark and dreary had been haunting him. The frantic mother, however, paid no attention, as the little boy squirmed, now a criminal.</p>
<p>As they were finally (finally) outside of their home, the mother dashed out of the car, worried about something apocalyptic, as the boy wondered what he should do. He looked down at the horoscope: a little bound scroll with a meager price tag of forty-three cents, which was embedded with the words What is your horoscope? The boy was distraught; he had stolen a horoscope (whatever that was), and he could not return it now. He thought of all the prisoners he had seen in films, who were forced to wear orange jumpers, remain in dirty penitentiaries and where criminals had to share rooms with (gulp) another criminals. Im a criminal! the poor boy thought, a victim of somewhat ridiculous circumstance.</p>
<p>I realize now that this is not as serious a crime: surely, an unintentional stealing cannot be heavily reprimanded?</p>
<p>The little boy was afraid of his punishment: from his parents, from the law, from God. He remembered the movies he had seen: Im innocent I tell you! They would never believe this little boy. The boy decided:</p>
<p>Ill hide it.</p>
<p>The boy quickly walked to his room, shut the door behind him as he found a place to put the horoscope, then still bound. He had a few toy boxes under his bed and briskly grabbed one from the back. He quickly dug to the bottom of the box as if he were digging a hole, toys spewed around the floor as if dirt. He finally reached the bottom, and reached for the horoscope. Here goes nothing. He put it at the base of the box, and felt relieved for a moment. </p>
<p>Night came. The fortuitous prize of theft had proved venomous as the boy writhed in torment in his bed. He felt the presence of the horoscope as if it were alive, taunting him right below his body. He heard something. Was it a ghost? He felt the wrath of God might fall upon him soon: thou shalt not steal, droned in his head. Oh, no! He began to pray:</p>
<p>Oh loving God, please have mercy on me. I did not mean to steal! I do not want to go to jail! I do not want to go to Hell!</p>
<p>He no longer heard the noise, and little by little he fell asleep. Suddenly, there came a BANG! as his window clattered against the wall. He awoke suddenly, terrified by the abrupt and deafening noise. He looked at the source of the noise. Before him stood a ghost, garbed in the attire of the Christmas Carol final ghost, a film the boy had recently seen. He cringed; he was horrified! The ghost approached him, and grabbed him by his foot. No! No! I did not mean to! The ghost said nothing, as he dragged the boy and floated out the window. The boy remained silence as the ghost lifted him higher up into the air. The boy, now upside-down, looked at his local community; he saw buildings, cars, and people as small as ants. The boy then saw a local clock tower, which then struck midnight. He felt the ghosts grip loosen as he fell down from the sky. Ah! the boy shouted. As he almost reached the ground, he shot up from his bed: A nightmare. He rushed out of bed:
Mama! Mama!</p>
<p>She answered his cries and came rushing in. He told her everything. He told her about the horoscope, the noise, and the dream. The little boy could not live with the guilt any longer. She believed him: he was not to blame. His mother told him that they would return it the next day.</p>
<p>I think about this little boy, someone vaguely resembling me from thirteen years ago, and how he had truly felt the consequences of his action. Of course, I was the boy, although a younger version of what I am now. I was reminded the importance of honesty. But what intrigues me most about my reaction now is the warped image of justice and morality. How had I likened my incidental theft to that of a severe criminal? I perceived my actions as morally wrong, without considering the inadvertent nature of the crime. I now think of morality and the law, and this has led me to appreciate and realize something: that I must to look at the whole truth. Whenever I hear a rumor now or I read an article blasting someone, I stop. What if someone did not believe me and proclaimed that I was not innocent? Through the afterthought of this strange day, I have realized the importance of giving people the benefit of the doubt, because they might actually be innocent.</p>
<p>So essentially I wasnt caught by my parents, or the law, or God:
but by my mind and by my conscience.</p>