The other day I was going home from school when suddenly I felt something under my feet. It was an old, shabby notebook. I had never seen such a notebook before. For a moment I hesitated to pick up that old strange thing. Then some familiar voice whispered in my ears: ‘It is not an ordinary notebook. It is a magic diary. It is an open letter to the whole world. Take and read it’. I looked around. There was nobody to speak to me. I imagined myself in a fairy tale where I was the main character. I took the notebook and opened it. Its plot was as strange as its appearance. Here what I read there:
“Hello my dear friend. I know that someday you will find my magic diary and read the story of my life. I call it a magic diary because I know that it will not be lost even centuries later.
I do not know who I am, the child of a nobleman or a beggar, but I know that I am a parish child – the orphan of a workhouse.
My mother died before she could name me, my father was dead before I was born and one gentleman chose the name Oliver Twist for me. I am a good kid. I am not well educated and well-bred but very few believe it because they say I do not speak in slang but in King’s English. A child is a blank slate; he can be made into anything depending on who has access to him. That’s all about innocence and corruption, light and dark, black and white.
I am constantly surrounded by darkness and death; I am a child living among coffins and funerals. But why can’t life corrupt me. Is criminality something you are born with, or something you develop from your environment? In other words, is it a natural part of your identity, or something imposed from the outside? People think that I will lose my innocence as I progress. But I do not think so. I will remain as clean as I am now. I know that poverty and social injustice drive people to crime. Kid’s natural goodness could potentially be cracked by the bad environment in which he is born. Some boys I know have become pickpockets as bad life conditions made them behave so. But I do not blame on them. They are just little innocent creatures. What’s so special about the particular orphan? Despite my rough childhood I am just inherently good. During my life I have met a lot of evil a lot of injustice. “In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustic".(Ch. Dickens) But I have never lost my optimism to life. I believe that in the struggle between the evil and the good the latter will be the winner.
Dear friend, I am very sorry if I make you sad with my story. I know that life will be brighter and better in the future. I am sure that there are no orphans or beggar kids in your time. And if there are such, people are more sympathetic with them. I know that wealthy people in your time are not so heartless and cruel as they are now. They are generous to the orphans and the paupers. They do not leave them with little food or little care. I know you don’t have any workhouses for orphans but smart houses with good conditions and good care. All the orphans of your time have the opportunity to get a good education to live a good life. I am sure that you and your friends often visit them and make friends with them. You provide them with good food and beautiful clothes. Every time you meet them remember my sad story and make sure that they need your attention and care. Every time you meet them remember that each of them is an ‘Oliver Twist’.
How I want to live in your good and fair world, my dear unknown friend! ’’