Stolen Time

The first thing Theodore notices when he gets home is his key bowl. His hand hovers over the slightly translucent green bowl on the stand next to the front door, keys still in his grasp. The ring that usually resides at the bottom of the bowl is missing. He stands perfectly still, searching for the cause with only what he can hear and see from his position. One hand inches towards the knife kept sheathed inside his coat, hidden securely in a pocket against his chest. The cold handle is a stranger to his fingertips, but it fits in his palm like it was made for it as he draws it out, remaining completely silent. He’s had no use for it since buying it to replace his lost blade. It’s pristine, perfectly sharp, shiny and threatening.

The intruder knows he’s here, they must. The small apartment is filled with nothing but silence for what feels like hours but can be only a few moments. The slightest creak lets Theodore know exactly where the foreign presence is in his space, and he’s through the bedroom door in an instant, slowed only by his reliance on the walnut cane in his hand. In the other, he pulls out the knife, the edges of his movement rusty with disuse. The telltale squeak of the floorboard is enough for him to know what to expect when he rounds the corner.

Nonetheless, the mess is truly a sight to behold. His belongings cover almost every inch of the floor, save the one floorboard, dropped from a startled hand as he rounds the corner. Well-trained eyes take in all the information they need in a fraction of a second. A closet emptied out hastily, probably in search of a lockbox or a home vault. Mattress flipped, sheets torn off. All the typical hiding places scoured. Rough, shabby clothes, a roll of cash in a dirty hand, his few belongings that had been worth hiding under the floorboard spilling out of pockets, stuffed with greedy handfuls. A gaunt face. This face is not one of a serial burglar, Theodore can tell that already. The panic is evident, nothing but desperation behind the man’s eyes. This is a last resort.

The wad of cash bounces and rolls into a pile of discarded clothes, and the brief break of his zeroed in attention gives the man just enough time to pull out a knife of his own. They’re standing close enough for Theodore to see there’s an engraving on the handle, but not close enough to see what it says. The knife is old, slightly rusty and warped in spots, but it will do well enough as a self-defense weapon. It gives Theodore pause.

A year ago, he would have taken this burglar down with no issue, even without the knife. Now though, with the bum knee that took him out of combat over a year ago, he’s not sure he wants to risk it. He’s out of practice, has been working a desk job for months now, hasn’t had time to keep up his skill. There’s no guarantee he’ll come out of this unharmed, but the risk grows greatly if he chooses to engage with his weapon. So instead, he makes a very calculated decision. He lowers his knife.

Theodore takes pity on his intruder, a funny sentiment, he thinks, and clears his throat, trying to find the perfect mix of threatening and calm. “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care. I want you out of my apartment.” His tone leaves no room for argument, it holds fast and hides his nerves.

He doesn’t lower the knife all the way. He won’t make himself more vulnerable, choosing only to make himself less threatening. The poor man’s hands shake as he grips the shoddy knife with both hands. Silence again for a moment, neither man willing to speak up first.

The thief’s eyes dart to the roll of bills barely more than a foot away from him, almost directly between them, and Theodore’s knife raises back up a handful of inches. “Please. I, we, have nothing to eat. My family is waiting for me to bring home something, anything.”

“And this is the way you chose to go about it?”

“I didn’t have any other option.” The man’s other hand twists in the fabric of his pants. To wipe off sweat or stop them from shaking, Theodore can’t be sure. It must be one of the two, though. Everything about his posture exudes anxiety and fear.

“There’s always another option. We’re fighting a war right now, and always looking to recruit. Soldiers will be greatly rewarded for their efforts. Your family wouldn’t have to go hungry, and neither would you.”

The burglar scoffs slightly, the barest hint of a smile evident on his lips, “Do you think that is any more ethical than what I’m already doing?”

“What sort of question is that? Of course fighting for your country is more honorable than sinking to the level of theft.”

He scoffs again, “Murder is better than theft in your eyes?”

“Murder? Those men chose the risk when they agreed to fight for their country, as you would if you enlisted. I hardly call that murder.”

“What of our own men, then? Does it not hurt you to think of their lives ruined, or cut short?”

Theodore’s eyes screw shut tightly. Explosion after explosion invades his eardrums, his brain threatening to burst under the pressure. A hand on his shoulder brings temporary reprieve, a familiar ring reflecting the flashes of chaos around them. The comfort is all too brief. A blast just feet away throws them both to the side. Through the haze, he sees that the man the hand belonged to has taken the brunt of the force, quite possibly saving Theodore’s life and losing his own in the process. The man’s eyes bore into him, the eyes of a dead man. They’re the only things in focus in the blurry world he tries to make sense of. A searing pain shoots from his thigh down, bringing him back to his own body. When he looks back, what is left of the man is covered with a canvas tarp. Theodore is hauled away, the other man left behind. Only one of them has a chance of making it out of this alive, and their fellow soldiers know it. People drop like flies in battle. One day they’re dreaming of the future, talking about a wife to get back to, a family, a career. The next, they’re just a number in the casualty count. The dead man is forgotten by all but the one he saved.

“They chose the risk as well.” A stutter, slight, but palpable in his words. The stranger’s arrow hits a target while aiming blind.

“And who sold it to them?” The man aims with more intention now. “Men go to their deaths, and you send them there.”

“Just imagine it, the glory of helping your country win a war. My time spent serving in our army has earned me the greatest honor I will ever have. Don’t you want that?” The enthusiasm is faked and the sentiment only half-true, but Britain desperately needs new soldiers, Theodore can’t risk scaring people off with his own traumas from the battlefield.

“I suppose I do.” The nervous possible recruit concedes, “What do I have to do to sign up?”

The news of his passing a few short months later does not come as a surprise to Theodore.

“All men are capable of making their own decisions. I can try to convince them, but in the end, I am not the one who makes that choice for them.”

“Is the cause worth all this damage? The men you have seen dead, the lives ruined, the families left behind. All to fight someone else’s war? Why do we concern ourselves with countries like France and Austria, assassinations of faraway leaders, when we have more than enough problems to focus on here? Rulers get assassinated, backstabbed, betrayed, and we are expected to give our lives for their honor while citizens are starving to death in our own communities?”

A weeping new widow in a doorway, a baby that can’t be older than a few months on her hip and two small toddlers hiding behind her legs. Her words are incomprehensible through her grief, and all she can do is hold her children, the last parts of their father left behind. No words can console her.

“To fight for your country is the greatest honor one can have. It is something that can bring a family comfort in their grief if you do not make it safely home.”

The man grows bolder with each word, standing to his full lanky height. He’s too thin for his height, the kind of scrawny that isn’t natural. It comes from months, maybe years of slow starvation and the desperation that drove him here. “More comfort than the relief of seeing their loved one return safely? You lure men to their deaths, promising glory and honor, but what can you promise their families? Nothing. This country doesn’t care about its soldiers, and it certainly doesn’t care about its citizens.”

The parents of a boy who tell Theodore he had plans to propose to his girlfriend when he made it home. They don’t know how they’ll tell her, or his siblings, or the neighborhood that watched him grow up.

“I would rather live the rest of my life committing petty crime to keep my family fed than risk their heartbreak and my death to fight a war I don’t believe in.” He spits the words out, like even the thought of it disgusts him.

A door that won’t open when he knocks. He can hear their cries through it; they know what his visit means, and they don’t wish to speak to him. Theodore can’t say he blames them. Delivering bad news is one of his only uses as a soldier far from the warfront, besides recruiting new men to the cause.

“I… I see that I cannot convince you.”

The man’s eyes dart down to the cash again, and a dry tongue licks drier lips. “I see that you do not have the heart to harm me anymore. And perhaps not the ability.” In any other circumstance, these words would wound Theodore. But he hears in the man’s tone that it is not mockery but pity, sorrow for what the war has stolen from his fellow man.

Theodore lets his arm fall to his side, knife barely gripped tight enough to prevent it from slipping out of his grasp. A moment later, it does. “Take it. I have saved it up for months, waiting for something worth spending it on. Perhaps it will never come.

The man doesn’t ask if he’s sure, doesn’t give him a chance to take it back. He snatches the money up, tucking it into his pocket. His knife is still up in its aggressive position, but everything else about the man’s posture tells Theodore that there is no intention behind it. Neither man has the will to do the other harm anymore.

“Wait.” Theodore speaks again only as the man walks out, stopping in the doorway.

“The ring. The one in the bowl by the front door.”

After a moment of scrounging around in his front pocket, the man pulls the ring out. He drops it on the nearest surface, the edge of the nightstand. He flees the apartment successfully now, with the thought of a full stomach and a fed family. He’ll have no trouble keeping them sated for weeks to come with the dense wad of bills he’s lucked into. It doesn’t weigh him down as it has Theodore, and he finds himself hoping the man is able to use it to find his way into stability.

His thoughts don’t linger on the man for long, and instead turn to the returned ring. A band, silver, with a simple geometric engraving. It’s too small for even his smallest finger, belonging to a man slimmer and smaller than him. When he holds the ring, he can almost feel the man’s warm hand in his, even after the long year without him. A bum knee and a dead man. That was all he’d ever gotten from this goddamn war. In one fell swoop, it had taken his mobility and the love of his life. He had never let himself think about it too long, how many men he’d cursed to similar fates with his persuasions. It always brought him to the edge of nausea. But now it’s all he can think about. Perhaps burglary is a more honorable life than his.

Theodore walks back through his small apartment and shuts the front door left ajar by a fleeing man. The ring is placed back in its spot in the bowl, and the world is set right again. He wonders what his world would have looked like, though, if he’d never gotten involved in this fight that wasn’t his.