Trodden On

(Another old piece circa 2005. Horror/gore. I was one twisted kid.)

Trodden On
You don't know me, a silent, strange little boy. You may have seen me, on the streets, saw what I did for a living. The year is 1988. My life, leaking crimson on the floor.

School starts at seven thirty. You can take the bus, the taxi, the car, But my pockets are empty and so I walk. Every single day, thirty minutes in the damp, littered streets, treading on the filth and dirt that you never would. Please, don't pity me. I can't stand those fake, sympathetic looks of yours. You lie. And you know it. Your minds, too shallow to peer into the blackness of the alleys where darkness spawns and life struggles, too haughty to look down below your feet. So tread on me, you despicable lot.

At school, the teacher talks. I don't bother listening. The windows are built high up, to stop us from looking out. But, unlike you, I'm not nosy. I don't drool on my textbook or slobber over my friends new game. The seat to my left is empty. But why do you care, for a little boy in his grubby school uniform while your cherub, your apple of your eye is chanting the alphabet and doing sums. Yes. Nobody cares, not the least you.

Recess. The fat kid in front of me dashes to the toilet, stuffing his lunch down his stomach. Fat wobbles as he rushes off. I watch from the afar, an amused smile on my face. I do not smile from joy. Only at the absurdities of human life. At the playground, a band of twelve year olds laugh as they corner the looser of their class for money. Girls, with their ribbons and skirts, their pathetic imitations of mature women, scream for their turn on the swings. Boys congregate at the other end of the playground, all trying to look a porn magazine some classmate stole from their father's drawers. Seem familiar? Or were these the things you chose to ignore. But I stand away from everybody else, the loner, the odd one out and smile, hands in pockets at the simple minded beings.

School is over as classmates charge head over heels from the classroom. Home, to the comfy sofa, television and waiting chocolates and cookies. Your life. But not mine.

The street is spotted with soft dirt and blackened tissues, floating in puddles of sewage water. On both sides, men and women, sell their wares. Fakes, "outlets" and mainland pop music mingle with the smoke of the nearby congee shop.
I pass the legless man, waving his empty moon cake box and groveling on the pavement for anybody kind enough to bestow charity. But why would you care? It was his fault anyway.

I am late for my job. The old man who oversees me can swear and hit as he wants but to me, he's just another waste of a life within this broken society. He hands me those heavy piles of flattened card to take to the refuse area. On the way, I always pass those women. You may have seen them, their miniskirts, cheap makeup and cheap perfume and catlike smiles. You are their prey. They saunter around the street, flutter their eyelashes and offer a price. I hate them. My father comes here regularly after three hours of booze with his workmates.
I hate it even more when he's sober. Father hits me and nobody's ever there to stop him. Mother left ages ago, when she found that he was seeing somebody else. It's been two years since. Now only Father and I live in that run-down and sagging flat, amongst the thick black fumes and rising stench. Father gets angry often, for no reason. Would you care to see the scar? Yeah, he cut me on the back once. Blood was all over the floor before he realized what he had done. That crazy man. But what do you know, to live like this? And why would you care anyway, when your life is better?

But that was when the glass fell. Everybody moved. Except me. Nobody said a word. Who would, when their lives counted for more? Who would, then it wasn't them? But you don't care. I know you don't. Not for the thin, weedy kid with the oversized head. He's retarded. Dumb. Mental. But now he's gone. And you walked home with his blood all over your shows, after everyone had squashed him as they ran from the falling glass, treading on red slush.

The crimson liquid thickened, hardened. Dawn broke over the skyscrapers as the man walked over with a duster and swept the fast drying blood into a litter bag. But you never saw, only the faint redness on your shoes as reached home.

Home.