Notes from a thief’s deathbed, found in a forest in England.

I couldn’t imagine taking my last breath without first disclosing a few misunderstandings about my life. For years, rumors about me have circulated, but none of them have been accurate. I didn’t care. I liked the attention. I yearned for attention. It is just that craving for attention that led to my notoriety at all. It was the May games, I was going to partake in the merriment, and then I saw him. Mr. Snotty Rottingham. Oozing. All over her. It was disgusting. For weeks, I had nightmares of his morbidly obese, over-indulgent, sticky roundness bouncing off of her. He was salivating out of his eyes as well as his mouth. History has almost as been as kind to him as me, when they potray him to be the least bit in shape, but he was a pig on every level. I vowed I would one-up him. Even if he never knew it was me, I just wanted to see what would happen.

But then, I became obsessed. I wanted to piss off the whole town. I hated the King, hated the church, hated the law, but above all, I hated the rich. I wanted to take from them, to hurt them, and the only thing I could think of was to steal their money. After a few quick successes, I didn’t realize how easily victimized they were, fame went to my head—the people thought I was a hero. I definitely wasn’t the only person ever famous for archery, but I could be one of the greatest outlaws of all time, an outlaw with a purpose. I stopped doing it just for fun. Now, I believe in the equitable distribution of wealth, and I believe… no, truly, want, a breaking down of the class system. Marian has been calling me a communist. I hate her for the way she has been acting toward me. She says it is because I am obsessed with my work, but I know it is because she wants kids. With her, it is kids, kids, kids. She doesn’t have peer pressure, she has womb pressure. Kids, kids, kids. As if their absence denies her a future, or revokes her existence. She says it is different with her and that people will forget her after she is gone. Sometimes I wonder if I really loved her, of if I just had to stay with her to perpetuate people’s ideas of me. Is it living a lie if I created the lie, or if I agreed to live it? In the end, I couldn’t take it with me.

When I took the first bag of gold, it was shiny. When I took the second bag of gold it was heavy.