1-3

“It’s alright, baby, it’s alright.” Emma cooed to the youngest child, less than a year old, as she rocked him back and forth in her arms. He was screaming because he hadn’t had food in days. Lance hadn’t even been able to find remnants of food that had been thrown out. There was nothing.

                Staring at his nieces and nephews, he realized he had to do something. He couldn’t let them starve. The oldest was only eight. It just wasn’t fair! They were too little to understand what was even happening. All they knew was that they wanted food.

                Lance stood up from the table suddenly, knocking his chair over in the process. He had made his mind up, and he wasn’t going to back down now. As he stormed out the front door, he heard his sister call, “Lance! Where are you going?”

                Lance didn’t stop. He was going to feed those children. It didn’t matter what he had to do, they were going to get food.

                He stopped at the first house he saw and peered through the window. Nothing. He moved onto the next. Still nothing. But at the third house he came across, there was bread sitting on the counter, left out to cool. He stared at the bread for quite a while. If he could reach his hand through the window, he realized he could grab it. It was big enough that the children would each get a nice piece. He tried to lift the window, but it was locked. He stared long and hard at the bread, debating, and finally he smashed the window pane in with his fist. He grabbed the bread and ran.

                “Thief!” he heard someone behind him call. Soon the cry was taken up by everyone he passed. Lance was terrified. He had always been a good, honest man. He had been raised to treat others and their property kindly and with respect. But the children! It went against everything he had ever known, to just let those poor kids starve!

                He heard footsteps behind him and risked a glance back. He was being followed. He dropped the bread, hoping to distract the police, and picked up his pace. He made it back to his house, out of breath and immediately questioned by his sister. The bread hadn’t distracted the police, though. They followed him into the house only a minute later.

                The first office reached out and grabbed Lance’s arm. The blond man winced when he was grabbed. His arm had been cut by the glass from the windowpane. He had no excuses; everyone had known he did it.

                His hands were bound and he was led out of the house by the officers. His sister ran after them and paused at the front door, watching them take her brother away. There was nothing she could do. There was nothing anyone could do. Her brother was now a thief, and of course, the law is the law.

Five years. That was the sentence Lance received for stealing a loaf of bread. It didn’t matter that his family was starving. It didn’t matter that they had no hope of survival without him. He was sent to jail, where he would lose the name Lance Wise and just become a number to the system. 24601 was property of the state, now. A man without a name couldn’t truly be a man, now, could he?

                Emma and her seven children had no hope for life now. No one could ever truly say what had happened to them. It was believed a few of the children died, and that a few lived on and left their mother for something (hopefully) better. The last anyone had heard of them, Emma was working at a factory, trying to put the youngest boy, and only child who was still with her, through school. But in the whole of society, they had been forgotten about. Everyone had their own troubles, and no one could bother to stop and help a widow and her child. In fact, after a few years of hard labor at the prison, even Lance had forgotten about them.

 

Author's Note

Cast List:
Lance Wise - Jean Valjean
Emma - Valjean's sister