Short Crime Stories.

The vicious cycle.

It was a Tuesday morning, like all the others. Nothing seemed different. Just an ordinary day. Petros Panas left his home, in order to get to his work. He entered his car, he turned on the volume of the radio so loudly, that his car was buzzling and while he was on the road, a traffic light turned red, but he ignored it and continued. Before he reached to his work, he stopped by a pastry shop, in front of his working place and he bought some chocolate truffles, so that he can give away, to his coworkers for his name day. He went to his work and he distributed the chocolate truffles, so that everyone to have one and everyone joined in the celebration of his name day and wished him to live many more happily years and see his wishes getting fulfilled.

In the pastry shop that Petros Panas was before, the lady employee that served him, gοt into the kitchen and found her boss preparing more truffles, he asked her to give him some additional flour and she followed her employer's instructions but when the flour touched the counter, she noticed many mouse droppings mixed with it. He brushed them off and separated them from the flour and went on and used it for the truffles. While he was doing that, he noticed her intense stare. He stopped and looked at her for a moment.

"Why are you gazing at me? Don't you have anything else to do?", he said. And when she didn't answer, he continued. "They won't even understand it. They might like it too. With all the shitty things that they eat, they won't find any difference. "

"They could end up having gastroenteritis.", she replied.

"They would ate a lot before coming here. It could come from them."

"What if they understand that the truffles caused it?"

"They won't understand it! Don't look at me like that", he paused for a moment," Tell me something. How much your husband is getting payed?" She stared at him, shocked. "It would be too bad, if only one paycheck gets into your home and you have to struggle. Especially now, that you have a new member at your home. Now that you have a bank loan to pay, for your new car. You could lose your house. That's why you should forget what you saw and get out and wait for new customers."

After the pastry shop closed for the day, the owner drived to his home. A little bit before he reached his final destination, he stopped from a gas station, to fill his car's tank with gasoline. After he left, the owner of the gas station, was joking to one of his friends, that was with him that night, to keep him company and before he called it a day and continue together with whatever they have planned for the night, he laughed at how stupid are all the people, who pass from his gas station, to fill their car's tanks because they don't really know, how much adulterated the gas is. They have no idea. They are completely clueless. 

Later, the gas station owner and his friend went to a restaurant, to drink a lot and enjoy a variety of good food. Inside the kitchen of that restaurant, the chef was yelling to those who worked under him, insulting them and make them feel useless. Some vegetables that they would use in the food, were already rotten and some of the ingredients were past their expiration day, but he told them that inside the food, you can't see or understand their real quality, they get mixed with everything else and they look okay. Also, in this chef's restaurant, they don't print many receipts, in order to pay less in taxes. He too, found a way, so that he doesn't pay for the olive oil, that he is putting in the salads, that he is serving in his restaurant, he was taking it from the oil lamps on the tombs, that they were in specific cemetery and if he was lucky, someone might had there a whole bottle of olive oil, waiting for him to steal it and he was grabbing it without feeling bad, thinking of how much money, this move saved him, feeling clever and proud for his self and his ideas.

The chef, the next days, started to have issues with his eye sight, from his right eye, it was like he had a veil in front of his eye and his eye vision, had become a little bit blurry. He searched for a doctor. An old customer in his restaurant, suggested one that he knows, that he isn't very expensive. When the chef went to the doctor, he diagnosed him with cataract and he told him that he has to do a laser surgery and after that, he will see very clearly. They agreed, that the chef would really pay him another price for the laser surgery and another price it will write on the papers that he payed. The next week, the chef went to this doctor's office and did the laser surgery and everything went well, so he waited the next days, for his eye sight to improve but because of the low quality lens that this doctor was using, the chef's eye sight didn't improve enough.