September 02nd, 2020

 Musings for my next work of fiction
CONSOLATION TO THE GUILTY
"False pretences" is an interesting legal and moral dilemma: a double negative. Pretences can never be anything other than false. I gave you the hand-carved mask which you accepted without a word of thanks, but I gave it to you thinking that you would find it precious: a gift.
Eons ago, I found the small cubist-style artefact in a dry claypan north of an outback town.  I knew that I should not have disturbed  this object, this sacred relic, so humble and unassuming in one way, but so powerful in another.
I stole it , there can be no denying.
And then, to add insult to injury,  I gave the mask the to you.
But you stole too because of the context in which you accepted my offering: in the manner of narcissistic artifice and sociopathic disregard.
Now I am asking that you return the mask of many faces to me; you, the knave of hearts who stole those tarts, because I am not a tart, but you are most certainly a thief, as am I.
What determines the difference between a gift and a theft?
A legal practitioner  might offer the opinion that I am the sorry subject of my own delusion with no grounds for remedy whatsoever other than ....to be continued.