Charles’ Problem

There was a small village in USA, it was a very wonderful place called Winterfield where a lot of Rich people with large families lived. One of the families was Martin’s, Charles and Clarie were his parents, and George and Margaret his siblings. They lived in an enormous house of two floors with big rooms. Every weekend morning, Charles went to the club with his son. There they ran, played and finally they had a special orange juice that they loved. When they returned, Claire prepared the typical Sundays’ fish and chips.
On week days, Charles went to work early and at half past five, when he finished, he went to the gym, where he was known as “The man with the big nose”.
Everything was right, happy and in peace but one day, everything changed. The economical crisis affected everyone, including Charles’ job.
The company started to have debts and there were lay-offs that included him.
At first he enjoyed being at home but months passed and they started to have economical problems. He desperately started looking for a new job, but he couldn’t find one.
One day, he told Claire that he had a new job. They started to live like in the old times; he left home early and returned at half past five. But it was a lie, when he left, he went to the beach or the gym to run and then to a bar to drink something. The end of the month was near and Charles needed to show the money to Claire. He tried the lottery, the casino, but he wasn’t lucky. One evening, when he was on the bus, after the gym, he went to talk with an enormous man, a bold and very strong-built man, known as The lion. Charles told him about the situation and the Lion made him a strange proposal.
Unfortunately, Charles accepted and soon he started to feel really. He lost his hair; he couldn’t sleep at night and kept returning later and later. The proposal was to rob a bank and in the cold night of June 27th, they went to the HSBC, the nearest bank and broke into it. They took the safe deposit; there they found jewelry, watches and a lot of money. Charles and Lion put everything in huge boxes. Everything seemed to be ok but they were leaving when a guard appeared. He called the police and five minutes before they could leave, they were surrounded.
They couldn’t escape and they were arrested. Charles was very worried and regretted what he had done. He never got his freedom back, but the worst thing for him and something he couldn’t forget was the disappointment and sad gloomy faces of his little sons. He always said the same “it was the worst punishment”.


Pen name: Morimoto
Category C