Rice Fungus - Short Story About Life Lessons

 Hello again, everyone. Here again, I wrote a short story about slice of life based on my real-life event. 

The story begins when I harvest the rice in our field and sell it to a merchant. From all the fields, we got pretty good quality rice even though there's like 10% of rice affected by fungus. Due to this quality difference, we decided to sell it on different days. On the first day, we sold 20 sacks of good-quality rice without any problems. But on the second day, I had a bit of confusion about how I could sell that 1 sack of rice affected by fungus.

After short consideration, I made a decision to tell the truth to the merchant about the one sack of bad quality rice. I also prepared myself in case the rice only valued at half price or less. Arriving at the merchant's, the merchant was very busy weighing sacks of corn. I explained a bit that this is my last sack of rice that was left yesterday. Because of so many other farmers watching me, I'm scared and can't say the truth about the bad rice condition.

The merchant asked me why it was sold separately. Because I'm still ashamed to say the truth, I answered that I had made a mistake about the rice price count and ended up needed a bit more money. Right after I said it, the merchant started to laugh at me. The merchant also started making some jokes about my condition in front of all the people. Not only the merchant employees, but all the other farmers also laughed at my financial condition.

The merchant said, 'Your condition is not out of money, son! It's more like, what it's called? Oh yeah, it's called confused' followed by everyone's laugh.

'Just let me tell you this, because you're still young. You can't match your price count with the merchant count, kid. It's always been different because the market is always unstable. You are not the decider.' Followed a couple more jokes, repeatedly spoke to me.

That time, I felt embarrassed and cornered. I don't dare to talk back to the merchant. I'm just smiling and making a little nod in agreement with anything the merchant said. Until the merchant was about to weigh my rice, he did it without checking the rice quality. Probably because the merchant taught that the rice quality is the same as its previous rice, he said that the rice will go straight to the factory.

I'm shocked in silence, because the rice that is sent to the factory must be of the highest quality. But since I got embarrassed before, I'm not telling the truth about the rice quality. I'm just accepting the receipt and the money, which priced it at a high-quality price, then going home.

On the way home, my head was filled with doubts: Am I becoming a bad person? I'm feeling so guilty for not telling the truth just because of those jokes. Meanwhile, a rice fungus can spread to other good-quality rice, bringing huge disadvantages to the factory, even risking poisoning the customers.

I decided to keep it all to myself. Until the next season, I planted corn and suffered a huge loss. From the whole field that could produce 20 sacks of corn, we only make 1 sack. We decide not sell it and consume it for ourselves. I'm accepting this fate, thinking that this is probably the karma of my lies about rice quality in previous seasons.

Right after this, I decided to tell the truth to the merchant, also saying my apology. Even though it has been 6 months already. The merchant also said that he's already forgotten, at least no more secrets between us.

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