The Creature

"for the children on the streets"

On one very pleasant evening somewhere walking down the road, was a little creature with its back facing the sun, carrying a dark nylon bag, full of empty plastic bottles from which the creature was hoping to gain some money by selling them. The size of bag was almost twice the creature. Although the creature was walking on the pavement on one of the busiest streets in the country and on one of the busiest day at the busiest hour, strangely no one took notice of it. Like the empty plastic bottles inside its big bag, the presence of this creature was not acknowledged.

People failed to notice that the creature was somewhat ‘alive’. Perhaps a creature was a sub-human living thing not worthy enough of their attention obviously where they had more important things to attend to. Though the street lights were brightly lit, people did not seem to notice or care about this creature as if it was wearing an invisible blanket. The creature itself was taking a mental note that adult people are always rushing and always late. They never seemed to have spared time to concern themselves with other things not related to them.

The creature resembled a human three and an half feet high with four limbs, main body and one head between the tiny shoulders. It walked like a human. It talked like a human. It could also laugh,play,cry,dance like a human. It could also be happy for no particular reason as most children do. Basically it could do everything 10 years old male child could do and something more than most of the children. Something it shouldn’t be allowed. Something that should have been forbidden to make a living proof that there is such thing called human conscience. Something which made the difference between a normal child and the creature. It could also beg.

It could have been easily mistaken as a child only if it had a privilege to call some people parents, only if its clothes were somewhat not dingy and full, only if it had a mother and to be bathed by her rather than having to find something to hose itself down on its way to the road of nowhere, only if  it had been brought up by the hand of something beautiful  to human and somewhat taboo word to it called ‘love’, only if the creature had ever heard of a word called ‘generosity’ which had become an alien to it, only if the creature did not have to worry about having two meals a day and some shelter from the rain . Indeed, this sad little creature could be a boy child of ten years old only if the world hadn’t neglected it and only if affection had not been redundant so often from our daily agenda.

The creature was always constantly obsessed with these ‘only if’ possibilies. This creature with its infant mind understood that no matter how treacherous the world may be, there was a ludicrous thing that forced the creature to keep on going called ‘hope’ and no matter how frail and how unlikely this hope gets, hope was something that cannot be killed.

The creature would pray for a miracle to Buddha or God or Allah or Jesus or whoever divine only if it had been taught to whom and how to. The creature found refuge under the sight at the fun fair when it was deep in despair from hunger and darkness which were constantly trying to swallow it. Whenever it had a chance to simply go inside the compound of a fun fair which wasn’t allowed as the creature could not afford a ticket, it would have to  lurk from inside the bushes at the group of people composed of father, mother and a child, at this joyful sight, the creature’s imagination always took flight, that someday,  that happy-looking cleanly dressed up boy holding the hands of the rarest race of people in the whole wide world called parents could be it.  That someday wasn’t too far, it might got adopted and let the whole huge amount of love it had been missed would be just drugged inside to be mutated into a child again. That someday might come. The creature would wait for the day to transform again. At the moment, the creature was still a stranger in its native land.

As the creature walked and chance might have it, as the day had turned out to be one

of the luckiest as it had stumbled upon a row of dust bins. The creature had never seen so many dust bins at one time ever before. The more dust bins the creature could find, the higher chance it would have. There were flies hovering around the top part of one of the dust bins. The sight of seeing these flies had made the creature to leap towards the dust bin with delight as now the air was clearly surrounded by euphoria. It was now confirmed.

The creature reached to the dust bins and finally found what it had been searching for the whole day, at last, some food! Some leftover noodles now mixed with the other ‘entities’ of the dust bin to be exact. The day was secured now. The creature no longer had to worry about being forcefully teleported in matter of seconds to the most formidable desert called hunger tonight.  The creature did not have to face against the reality of life which would tarnish its dream like yesterday where its humble request to eat some dumpling was met with being hauled out of the shop by the owner who apparently got worried at the instant of seeing the creature that it might carry certain air born diseases. The awful experience had been a thorn in its memory.

Although the creature had found what it had been looking for the whole day, it did not have enough courage to eat what was in front of his eyes: a fist full of noodles mixed up with dust, paper, and other entities of the dust bin. Then the smell somewhat pungent got into the creature nostril and that took away all the nerve to consume it. At last its mind had failed to constantly deluding that what was in front of its eyes was consumable. All hope seemed to have lost with the smell. Now the creature would need the courage again to be devoted to the emptiness inside its stomach again. 

The creature now felt something hot inside the chest which also made the actions faster called anger towards that dumping shop owner. It did not know then that greed had corrupted the owner’s heart. The creature was now a victim of this greed. However, the creature would have followed the same fate as the dumpling shop owner with the same dogma of a mind being gravitated to vengeance towards the world and that life was nothing more than a race where gratitude was a affordable scarcity and people were just there to take advantage of you. You were supposed to be useful to something in order to survive.  And that life was no more than a miserable b***h and we should all just get used to the nature. But something unexpected happened to the creature that forever changed its life.  The creature heard words that forever changed its life. “Here you go, poor thing”.

The creature then raised its head suddenly and found the face of the woman so calm and glowing like no one else it had ever seen before for the woman was holding an apple towards the creature and the apple was carefully nurtured and even reflected the street lights. The creature thought  what would this woman want of me.  The creature was certain that the woman would find it no use to her . The creature would not dare to touch the apple. As much as the creature would want to fill the hunger inside the stomach, it was terrified to accept the apple. Perhaps the creature thought, what it wanted most had happened: the sign of love. This shocked the creature and terrified him. Life had been just like a dark hole to the creature : taking all that it had and never offered anything back in return for nothing was free. To live was always seem to be at a cost. This sudden transformation of life was too difficult to cope for the creature. An apple was offered to the creature. It was free. The creature could not comprehend the concept. Its limps were frozen by the cold ice called bitterness that its chest had been absorbed for so long and now this ice was melting from the chest to the limps.

As if the woman knew what the creature was going through, she offered the apple to the creature again patiently. The skinny and ugly creature which was always deprived of love had no energy left to succumb the woman’s kindness. It then swiftly grabbed the apple and ate it furiously. The woman smiled. The creature smiled back to her. At that instant, the creature was slowly and unconsciously transforming itself into a boy again for there was a certain entity beside him who regarded the creature as a boy by offering what the creature most needed with patience. 

The world was no longer a cold dark hole. It could surprise the creature which was now a boy. Perhaps he might even have someone who would belong to him. And the fact that all the people who ignored him and believed he was not related to him did not matter anymore. For what do these two words “not related” stands for? Isn’t the most scariest mortal fear is the tendency of not being able to relate to something? People needs a sense of belonging to something they highly treasured, be it money or relative or friend or school or love or work or religion or one’s moral values,  so that their lives would have a meaning in their desperate attempt to find one. The higher tendency of not being able to relate to something, the more lonely they get. 

But the creature would not have to worry about these things at all. For now, it had become a boy again and he had decided that he would never lose sight of this lady who just offered to him an apple.

 

Nyi

( 29.10.2011 )

 

 

Reviews

[Cheng Yew,Chew]

in a sarcastic way or?

[Cheng Yew,Chew]

In what way should i read it?

[Coyote Poetry]

Than you for the wonderful story. People who are alone and afraid can become monsters. I like the description and the positive ending. You create a strong character who had a happy ending. Thank you for the excellent story.
Coyote