A Short Story: Gifts to the Dark Gods by Mary McCluskey

Addiction [to anything] regardless of its atrocity and immorality can degenerate even the healthiest and most qualified of life styles.

    While few forms of addiction such as drug abuse have always been taken seriously and confronted rigidly, other types ,however, have not.

    The compulsory desire to experience a supposedly normal physical or mental phenomenon repeatedly can prevent us from acquiring the basic fundamentals of living, let alone an irresistible impulse to perform something as fallacious as theft.

    Gifts to the Dark Gods narrates the story of a woman named Helen, who has everything and nothing. A family of virtue and wealth with happy children, and a husband who values morality and legality through his profession as a lawyer.

But perhaps one thing she lacks is independency from the hands of her husband who happens to be the bread winner of the household.

    Helen is simply addicted to shoplifting and stealing of goods; a rather strict rule regarding theft of three separate items a day governs this addiction to the point where she would suffer from panic attacks should she did not manage to steal the aforementioned tokens.

    The narrative more than anything transmits the grey sense of urgency for burgling something as utterly meaningless as a flower vase filled with water in order to quench the thirst for such addiction.

    This short story ends in a sensible yet predictable manner and serves as a reminder for all of us who may or may not find ourselves suffering from the predicaments of such.

You can read the story here .