Two weeks passed by since the day she brazenly asked for the job.
Bernie slowly lost the desire to rob her new boss. She was skeptical about his character for the first two days of coming to work, but she found him to be the most gentle and dedicated person she had ever seen.
Every day, he would come to the shop very early and work on new pieces of jewellery till she left, only coming out once a while to chat with her. She was sure he worked late at night. She even began to doubt he went home at all.
He had given her a huge advance, and that took away the need to rob him or anyone else. If anything, she had begun to save because she feared it was all a dream.
On one very boring day, she strode into his workshop (she never asked for his name) and grabbed the free chair, watching him tinker away at a ring. She didn't worry about someone coming to the shop, because since that day she entered the shop, no one else came. It was as though the shop was invisible. She watched intently as her boss worked away at his job.
"Do you know how pure gold is made?" He asked her, without shifting his gaze from the ring. She grunted a negative response. Bernie had gotten tired of his enthusiastic lectures when it came to luxury items. She just couldn't keep up with him.
"Gold in its raw state, is very ugly and undesirable. It's dirty and covered with impurities and grime. Raw gold is not good for anything and is almost worthless in the eyes of a regular person. Some may not even recognise it if it were given to them." He began.
Bernie sighed. She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, she wasn't intending on paying the lecture any attention. She planned to disappear if the lecture got too lengthy.
"You see, people are like gold. They have unlimited potential, and unique assignments. But a 'raw' human can not amount to anything. They'll be ugly, weak, fruitless and undervalued. Just like gold." He explained, never taking his eye off the ring.
The words hit her hard, and though she didn't understand it, it made sense to her. Her previously uninterested expression evaporated. She sat properly, giving him her undivided attention.
"At the heights of the temperatures gold can withstand, so many impurities would be burnt to nothingness. This easily reveals to you what pure gold is, and what isn't pure gold." At this point, he had finished tinkering with the ring, so he turned to her and smiled.
His words made a lot of sense to Bernie. She had seen life as a downhill plunge. She felt her existence didn't matter. She struggled so hard to survive that she never thought anything deeper in life that what she'd eat the next morning.
"In the flames of life, some people get burnt into nothingness, while some others get tossed into even hotter flames and they come out as fine gold. Makes me wonder what I am." He looked at his heavily scarred hands and sighed.
"But when I saw you come into the store, I saw raw gold. I didn't ask why you weren't in school, but I can tell you've seen so much in life that all of that hardly matters to you." He said with compassion.
Bernie began to sob, as the memories of all the terrible things that happened to her washed over her repeatedly. She curled up into a ball and bawled. Her boss dragged his seat next to her and sat. He didn't anticipate her leaning on him, but he wrapped his arm around her, comforting her.
"Life is a test. A trial by fire, if you will. But sometimes, the pains and suffering you encounter are there to purify and bring out the best of you. It is the same fire that makes the gold pure, that destroys the impurities."
"You are not a failure, Bernice." He whispered.
Bernie was shocked. The words he said refuted the very words her mother had engraved repeatedly on her mind, heart and soul. Those were the words that had defined her life.
"You are not a failure, but you can not go through the fire alone, Bernice, no one can. However, as long as you wish to find the way, he's right there."
"How... What is the way? I—" Bernie, whose face had become red from the crying, began to recount her life's tale to her boss.
After a few hours of crying and a long conversation, Bernie walked out of the shop refreshed. She had never felt like that before. She felt like a huge load had been removed from her and she was as light as a feather. She embarrassedly wiped her eyes and left the area.
***
Bernie woke up groggily to hear sharp knocks on her door. She never had visitors before, and she never told her boss where she lived. She became alert, playing the silent game.
"We know you're in there, Bernice Sanders. We just want to talk to you." A muffled voice said. Then after a little wait, the banging resumed. She knew if she didn't respond sooner, they would break the door down, and they wouldn't be civil anymore.
When she opened the door, she was temporarily blinded by the light from outside. Her room was always dark and she liked it that way.
When she could see properly, she saw two police officers, a fat ugly woman and a person she recognised, a store owner she had robbed multiple times. He was one of the people who hated her the most and she had successfully evaded him until now.
She knew she screwed up. She usually took precautions when she went out and came in, to prevent pimps and weirdos from following her, but the day before, she was so caught up in the feeling of a new life, that she forgot she had enemies of the old.
"Are you Bernice Sanders?" The first police officer asked gruffly.
"That's her, Officer! That's the demon who had been stealing from my husband's store! Look at her! She's a disgusting thief and a whore and a—" The fat woman began to rain insults and curses on Bernie. The second officer almost had to use his entire life force to shut her up, though she could have easily overpowered him with her weight.
Bernie had never seen her before, so she wondered where all the hate was coming from, but this time, she couldn't bring herself to lie. Her actions finally caught up with her. She sighed.
"Yes, sir." She said.
(End of part 2)
1 Peter 1:7
That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
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