Not Stolen
Created | Updated Feb 27, 2012
A man and a woman fall in love late in life. They have both had bad experiences in their first marriages. So they are very cautious about starting anything that might get serious quickly. But love invades their hearts and takes over their minds. The woman imagines that she is hearing "violins"! The man is a bit obtuse, but even he knows that he cannot live without her. They are both members of the new working poor class that grew up after the 2007 global recession.
The woman loves getting flowers but the man cannot afford to buy her any flowers. So he steals them from council parks and private gardens. It is a risky activity and this makes the woman grow increasingly worried for her lover.
Eventually the man is caught in the act on the Council's CCTV. The Council decide to prosecute the man as an deterrent to others. They go for the criminal charge of theft! Given the man's repeated offences and his admission of guilt, the magistrate has no choice but to send him to a minimum security detention facility for three months of weekend detention.Having nothing to do in his cell, the man learns some French from a phrase book. He searches out for the phrase pas vole (not stolen). The boredom of incarceration drives the man to write about his feelings. He surprises himself when he writes his first poem. He heads it "Not Stolen but Freely Given'. It went like this:
You are the beat in
my heartbeat.
You are the thought in
my mind's eye.
You are the sunrise in
the sky of my cell.
When life in jail tempts me
to cheat on you,
The memory of your laugh calls me
back to the loyal heart.
As you give so generously of your time,
when you visit me,
I, in gratitude, surrender my heart to you
when you say goodbye.
Then I die a small death
until I see you again and hear your adorable voice.
The man uses his one mobile call, for the weekend, to ask the woman to visit him. At first, the woman will not ever entertain such an act of bravery. Then she changes her mind and finally decides to go and see him in jail. the man gives her the poem and explains the use of the phrase:
pas vole. She tells him that she studied French and understood its
intent. They decide to make it their phrase.
Returning to his ordinary, and poverty constrained former life, the man works part time in the council gardens, on Saturdays, accepting only roses as wages. These he gives to the woman with the same words: pas vole. The outcome of the trial embarrassed the man but he grins and gets on with his life.
Meanwhile the woman has gone on holiday (arranged way before she met the man). When she gets back, after a few weeks away, she is a different woman. Going out on date with the woman is now made unpleasant by her constant criticisms. The final straw for the man is when he gets an SMS from the woman and she display a nasty taste for boorish aggressiveness. In a fit of temper, the man deletes the womans number from the contact list of his mobile phone.
The woman waits for the man to call her for a date. But he never calls her and he never sends her a SMS. As fate would have it, the two are thrown together when they meet on the train. Both feel uncomfortable but remain polite. The man knows that he cannot improve her life one little bit and that he will always be poor. He makes the supreme sacrifice and
decides to walk away from her forever. But love has the last say. As he leaves the train, the man puts his hand on his heart and mouths the words pas vole in his bad French. The woman catches both the gesture and the words. Her cold heart melts and she decides to forgive him by giving him another chance. Running after him on the platform, the woman catches up to him at the stairs and slips her hand into his. The man is too scared to look at her, not wanting to break the spell. So he raises her hand to his lips and kisses her fingers.
Getting out of the train station, for both of them, was like waking from a dream. They now knew that they had a chance and that they would spend some time alone together. The woman said only one word as she kissed him on the cheek, "Soon!" . The man smiled and replied, "I will bring you roses and they will be pas vole!" The man and woman go off to their seperate places of work humming inside.
The woman loves getting flowers but the man cannot afford to buy her any flowers. So he steals them from council parks and private gardens. It is a risky activity and this makes the woman grow increasingly worried for her lover.
Eventually the man is caught in the act on the Council's CCTV. The Council decide to prosecute the man as an deterrent to others. They go for the criminal charge of theft! Given the man's repeated offences and his admission of guilt, the magistrate has no choice but to send him to a minimum security detention facility for three months of weekend detention.Having nothing to do in his cell, the man learns some French from a phrase book. He searches out for the phrase pas vole (not stolen). The boredom of incarceration drives the man to write about his feelings. He surprises himself when he writes his first poem. He heads it "Not Stolen but Freely Given'. It went like this:
You are the beat in
my heartbeat.
You are the thought in
my mind's eye.
You are the sunrise in
the sky of my cell.
When life in jail tempts me
to cheat on you,
The memory of your laugh calls me
back to the loyal heart.
As you give so generously of your time,
when you visit me,
I, in gratitude, surrender my heart to you
when you say goodbye.
Then I die a small death
until I see you again and hear your adorable voice.
The man uses his one mobile call, for the weekend, to ask the woman to visit him. At first, the woman will not ever entertain such an act of bravery. Then she changes her mind and finally decides to go and see him in jail. the man gives her the poem and explains the use of the phrase:
pas vole. She tells him that she studied French and understood its
intent. They decide to make it their phrase.
Returning to his ordinary, and poverty constrained former life, the man works part time in the council gardens, on Saturdays, accepting only roses as wages. These he gives to the woman with the same words: pas vole. The outcome of the trial embarrassed the man but he grins and gets on with his life.
Meanwhile the woman has gone on holiday (arranged way before she met the man). When she gets back, after a few weeks away, she is a different woman. Going out on date with the woman is now made unpleasant by her constant criticisms. The final straw for the man is when he gets an SMS from the woman and she display a nasty taste for boorish aggressiveness. In a fit of temper, the man deletes the womans number from the contact list of his mobile phone.
The woman waits for the man to call her for a date. But he never calls her and he never sends her a SMS. As fate would have it, the two are thrown together when they meet on the train. Both feel uncomfortable but remain polite. The man knows that he cannot improve her life one little bit and that he will always be poor. He makes the supreme sacrifice and
decides to walk away from her forever. But love has the last say. As he leaves the train, the man puts his hand on his heart and mouths the words pas vole in his bad French. The woman catches both the gesture and the words. Her cold heart melts and she decides to forgive him by giving him another chance. Running after him on the platform, the woman catches up to him at the stairs and slips her hand into his. The man is too scared to look at her, not wanting to break the spell. So he raises her hand to his lips and kisses her fingers.
Getting out of the train station, for both of them, was like waking from a dream. They now knew that they had a chance and that they would spend some time alone together. The woman said only one word as she kissed him on the cheek, "Soon!" . The man smiled and replied, "I will bring you roses and they will be pas vole!" The man and woman go off to their seperate places of work humming inside.
