The cold breeze lightly ruffles my worn jeans. I can feel tiny goose bumps poking from my skin’s surface as I try to sleep on the hard brick surface. I can feel the dust attempting to take me in its hug. The wind, however, aggressively fights it tonight. Had this been any other night, when the wind was still, the humidity would have pressed on me.
Nobody feels the pressing weight of the heat unless he strolls out of his comfort zone and attempts to live by the docks. It’s a dangerous area for the rich gentry though. They only come to this area when they plan to ride a giant ship and sail away to a vocation. But for people like me who sleep with an empty belly and empty pockets, there’s no risk. In fact, we are a threat to these skilled thieves.
What if we attempt to copy their business and fill out pockets with the money they have their eyes trained on? A squeal behind the dustbins finally wakes me. I scratch my arms as hard as I can. Sometimes, I just want to tear my skin with my nails out of the loathing I feel for myself but there is nothing more that I can do than this. I am a case of utter hopelessness.
By the time, I force myself to cut back the scratching, a frustrated voice slips from my lips. The golden fingers of the early morning sun are already peeking out from the corners of the horizon. And I know what’s to come next: the anxiety, the worries, and the apprehension of a small bit of bliss that will soon be replaced by a flood of melancholy.
I have the last bit of dose of my drug. I am careful to let full exhaustion take over me so that I can take a shot then because I don’t have the cash to get more of my drug. Unfortunately, a new round of frustration cascades down my body, and I shiver, taken aback by the sheer intensity of my helpless situation.
I close my eyes and lay into the fetal position. And I let my mind wander to my mother’s thoughts. It’s always difficult to block her out. Her soft voice hums to me from the time when I was a young boy of only 9. She used to tuck me into bed with a lullaby. Other times, she’d be humming as she did her daily chores and I sat by her, working to build robots with my block set.
All of the sudden, the brightly-lit house with a floral rug at its center vanishes from my mind. It is quickly replaced by a dimly-lit studio apartment, which is strewn with mess. Dirty laundry is littered on the pool and the couple bickers loudly, never wondering that a young boy could be hearing all those abuse words that her mom’s boyfriend speaks to her.
Juliet, my mother was a graceful woman who loved to keep thing tidy. She had a habit of setting a fixed place for everything. She’d scold me if my toys weren’t in the toy basket or if my joggers weren’t in the shoe rack. That’s how I love remembering her and describing her. Alas, my mind is a place that is pained dark and its poison spreads to every good memory too.
