Toxic Tales

What's in a Name?

I'm sure you've heard my story. At the very least, I'm sure you've heard my name. It's quite unusual, and hard to forget.

My story...even now, as I write these words, I find it hard to refer to this as my story. In the version SHE spreads around, I'm barely in it. I'm also described as devious, wicked and vindictive.

There are two sides to everything. My time in this world is not long, so I have decided to write my side of what happened, hoping someone who reads it will understand the misery I have been through.

When I was a young boy, my mother died, and my father, who worked as a weaver, became fearful that he couldn't support us on his own. Fortunately, he was a smart, hardworking man who always found a way around his obstacles. A friend of his taught my father a rare skill: alchemy. It was a fairly discredited field of science, granted, but those who were dedicated enough were able to master it. My father was one of those people and, to my delight, so was I.

I inherited my father's weaving skills and had been practicing them since I was a child. When he mastered alchemy, he taught it to me, but with a special twist: he had discovered how to spin ordinary straw into gold.

I refused to believe it was possible when he told me, but then he showed me how it was done. It took time and patience (of which I had very little at the time) but I soon became proficient in this skill.

I was a young boy at this time, probably only sixteen years old, so I was rash and impetuous when it came to the idea of endless wealth and luxury. My father, however, was a wise and learned man, and insisted that we didn't need anything other than what we had in our humble cottage. This made me furious with him for a long time, until he finally sat me down and explained what he meant.

"Son," he told me, "we certainly do have access to a great fortune with this skill, but I do not wish to use it for that because I want you to understand the value of hard work. Money in vast quantities becomes a poison; it infiltrates the mind and convinces us that we want more than we need. Material possessions are all well and good, but nothing can replace true depth of character and goodness of soul. With those, a man is richer than any king."

I thought a great deal about what he said. I admired my father very much, and wished to be more like him. Still, my young mind had difficulty grasping the idea that living almost in squalor was preferable to amassing wealth and riches. One day, however, I truly understood what my father was trying to teach me.

The local tax collector was a cruel man, and frequently took advantage of those citizens who didn't pay their taxes on time or had too little to give. It was common knowledge that he took the tax money for himself. He treated my father with respect, but it was only due to his ability to make straw into gold. He tried telling us that the tax had increased and we had to pay him a great deal of gold, but one day my father put his foot down and refused to give him another cent.

That night, while I was lying in bed, I heard the door creak on its hinges. Soft, heavy footsteps followed that noise, along with the sound of low, raspy breathing. I smelled whiskey. Turning over as quietly as I could, I looked up and saw the tax collector standing over my father's bed, a dagger in his hand, about to strike.

I jumped out of bed and ran at the man. I caught him off guard; if he had been more wary and sober, I would never have been able to knock him to the floor. I grabbed the knife out of his hand. Growling, he looked at me with fury in his eyes and yelled, "I'll teach you a lesson, you little bastard!"

He reached out with his huge, beefy hands and was about to lock them around my throat when my father grabbed the lantern beside his bed and brought it down hard upon the foul man's head. He collapsed, unconscious.

I was breathing heavily, my heart still racing. I looked up at my father, who reached out his arms and pulled me close. I was shaking, and I remember feeling slightly ashamed for crying at the time. Before my father left to fetch the local guards to arrest the man, he gave me one last hug, looked me in the eyes, and said, "This is what I mean, son. This man was greedy, and it caused him to attempt an unspeakable crime. I hope you understand now." He kissed me on the forehead and charged me with watching the unconscious brute until he returned.

I stayed up the rest of the night, looking at the wretch with hatred. I finally understood what my father meant. I was content with the life I had now, as long as we were comfortable and had each other.