The Avocados
It would be fitting to explain how I had been exposed to ‘avocado thievery’. And to tell the reader the barest truth, even I do not know how I had become victim to such habits. Yes, I had been present to all incidents. Yes, I watched myself fit the avocados into the palms of my hands. Yet I cannot tell you with absolute certainty the conditions under which I had become The Avocado Thief.
There simply was nothing, and then there were the avocados. They taunted me with their leather-like skin and deep green hue. Behind my back, they hissed indiscernible words, pressing me to touch them. Stroke them. Steal them. I could bear it no longer. I extended my arms and my fingertips brushed their bumpy skins.
At first, I kept it a secret, hidden from onlookers everywhere. But the truth soon escaped, no matter how tightly I sealed my lips and no matter how diligently I cleansed my thoughts.
It was an act beyond my control—I do recall one particular incident:
I rode along on my bicycle on a small, bumpy, and often deserted road. The avocados were in season and I, still young, had only undergone the act of avocado thievery once or twice then. I stopped before an avocado orchard—how naive I was!—and looked upon it with inquisition. That day, I had been so young, and so my avocado-filled schedule had not seen its creation. Under hindsight, I would have escaped, put as much distance between those fruits and my lusting hands as could have been possible. Yet, filled with a brimming curiosity I had never experienced, I stepped towards the orchard.
I was possessed. My fingers itched to grasp themselves onto those thick skins. But I kept my composure, lawfully avoiding my hands away from other persons’ fruits. I was salivating, desiring, but I was not a thief.
And then! I saw an avocado, laying itself daintily on the ground. Perhaps it had fallen from an orchard tree, but it was not within the orchard’s fences. It could only have been seen as road litter. And to take it would be an act of cleansing. It could not be construed as theft. I could not stop myself; I dove.