I Want to Die-Or Fight Back

By Martina Donna Ramone

This 8,000-word short story contains adult themes such as rape and other kinds of violence. This short story is not erotica.Chapter 1: The BeginningMartina visited a bad section of the city, where she noticed a lot of family-owned stores, many of them owned by whites and by Asian-Americans. She also noticed a lot of hostility and tension between the workers in the stores and their customers, many of whom were black. In some stores, the Asian-Americans would even follow any blacks who entered the store. That way, the Asian-Americans could make sure that the blacks did not shoplift anything.She entered a store to make a small purchase. In this store, the elderly storekeeper was shorthanded and so stayed by the cash register and did not follow around the three black teenagers who entered the store behind Martina. However, Martina noticed that his eyes followed the three black teenagers when they were within his line of sight, as they often were. The storekeeper also kept his eyes on the mirrors that extended his line of sight.Martina quickly learned that the three black teenagers knew where the mirrors were located. They stole stuff when they knew that the elderly storekeeper could not see them. When they had stolen enough, they went to the cash register area and one teenager paid for some inexpensive items. Martina estimated that the three black teenagers had stolen items that were worth four or five times the amount that the one black teenager had actually paid.Martina picked up a few small items, went to the cash register area, and opened her large purse to get some money-and to allow the elderly storekeeper a chance to glance inside her purse and see that she was not stealing anything.The elderly storekeeper also looked over Martina's body with a quick glance-not in a lecherous way, but simply to see if her clothing had any telltale bumps that indicated the presence of shoplifted items. The only bumps she had were all natural-the gifts of God."Did you see those three teenagers?" he asked her. "I know that they stole from me just now, but I can't do anything about it because I did not see them steal anything. They're stealing me poor. Soon I am going to have to close this store because of a lack of profit. That actually will hurt this neighborhood because less competition means higher prices. Those teenagers don't realize that by stealing from me they are hurting themselves and their families.""That's a shame," Martina said. "Someone ought to do something."That night, Martina had an idea that she put into effect the following day. Each day, she would go to a store, buy the kinds of items that the teenagers were stealing, put them in her purse, and then go to the store of the elderly storekeeper. There she would pick up a few items, but she would also wait until she was in an area that the elderly storekeeper could not see, and she would unload her purse, placing on the shelves the items that she had previously purchased at another store. Then she would pay for the items she had picked up, always opening her purse wide so that the elderly storekeeper could see that she was not stealing anything. Often she saw the black teenagers in the store. Often they would steal things that she would quickly replace with the items that she had smuggled into the store.The first time Martina did this, she thought, Shopstuffing. It's a nice change from shoplifting.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B08MS5KFB7
• ISBN13: 9798558894936
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 40 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"