The wastrel

(A deviation from my usual humorous posts)

The first time he saw her was sometime in the middle of summer. She was walking down the road, a short woman, with a brown paper bag in her hand. She was smiling into space, her mind so occupied she didn’t notice the stares of the other people. Maybe they found the way she walked or her dreamy smile odd, but she didn’t glance twice at anyone.

He didn’t know what made him follow her, but he found himself trailing along after her, though careful to maintain a distance between the two of them. She didn’t turn back even once, though others looked at him, or rather, looked down upon him. No one approves of a wastrel, roaming around the streets, no matter that he was too young to live on the streets alone, with no home to go to. Some people even screwed up their noses, as if he smelt like garbage.

For once, he didn’t care as he followed the woman for what seemed like ages, till she stopped outside a small house. He halted, and watched as she rummaged in her bag for a key, opened the door, and to his disappointment, went in and shut the door. His hopes of getting some food were dashed, and he put his head down. He haunted the narrow alleys, scrounging for leftovers in the dustbin. He ate what he got, though it was disgusting. As night came, he curled up on a park bench opposite to the woman’s house and tried to sleep. He shivered in the cold night, but finally, exhaustion overtook him and he fell asleep. Life on the streets was not easy.

He got up early the next morning, the sun shining bright on his face, and stretched himself. His body felt stiff from having slept on the hard bench, but he’d gotten used to it. As he washed his face in the fountain, many people jogged or walked by. His stomach rumbled. He walked down the road to a small bakery, and looked up hopefully at the man opening the shutter. The man looked at him, and he saw pity in the man’s eyes. Then the man smiled at him, and took out a few slices of bread from the shelf and gave it to him. He pounced hungrily on it and ate with relish. The man watched him for a while, amused, and then shooed him away, saying his customers would be coming soon. He tried to show the man his thanks, but the latter shook his head. Feeling happy, he walked back to the park.

As he passed the house, he saw the door open and the woman come out. For the first time, she saw him, and paused. She came up to him and smiled down at him. She asked him his name, but he couldn’t reply. She understood that he couldn’t speak, and gave him another smile. After that, she walked away, leaving him staring at her till she turned around the corner.

The day turned out to be a disaster. He had the misfortune of getting into a fight with one of the street gangs because of the very silly reason that he didn’t have enough sense not to laugh at the leader, which didn’t go down well with his minions. What provoked them most was that he was smaller, and much younger. A few of the other waifs who lived on the streets like him, tried to help him, but in the end, they had to concede defeat. He limped back to the park, a cut above his left eye, and a gash in his chest and numerous wounds in other parts of his body. The thugs had shown no mercy, but he had the small satisfaction of having hurt the leader badly enough to leave a permanent scar.

He fell down heavily in front of the woman’s house, his body racked with pain. It was past sunset, and he lay there for a long time, with passers-by looking at him in pity, some shocked by the wounds, and some shaking their heads at him. But none of them lifted a finger to help him. His eyes closed, and he prayed he would die, if only to escape the hardship.

His ears suddenly caught voices and someone lifted him up. He opened one eye, his right one, and looked up at the woman’s kind face, her brown eyes full of pity as she carried him inside. Tears ran down his face, even as his wounds hurt. She spoke in a soothing voice and took him to the kitchen, and laid him on the huge table. She continued to speak softly as she took out bandages, cloth, and a glass bottle. She smiled at him and pressed cotton soaked in some liquid on the wound in his chest. He yelped and flinched but she held him down and wrapped the wound in bandage. She gave him some food and told him he could sleep on the sofa in the hall. Her kindness overwhelmed him, and he felt as happy as he had never felt in his life.

“Someone so young as you are shouldn’t be out on the streets alone. You might get killed. If you don’t have a home, you can stay here till you find one,” she told him.

From that day, he became a part of her life. She treated him like a friend sometimes, and sometimes like a son, but never made him feel like a stranger. He would walk with her everyday to the school where she worked and roam in the school’s huge ground. Some of the children would play with him, but some of them gave him disapproving looks, plainly knowing he didn’t belong there, while some ran away at his sight. He avoided the streets where he used to roam; he didn’t want to go back to that life ever again. Some kids thought it amusing to call him names as he couldn’t talk back, but every time he made threatening noises and glared at them, they would hurry away, crying for their mothers, leaving him laughing at them.

In the evenings, the woman and he would go for a walk in the park. She talked to him, and he listened intently, even though he couldn’t reply. She told him of her school, her likes and dislikes. She used to make him treats if he behaved properly and made him take a bath every day. In clean water. He felt like a new person. He understood why she enjoyed his company. They were both lonely.

“There isn’t enough love left in the world,” she would say. “People are in too much of a hurry to appreciate simple things in life.”

They would play with the Frisbee in the park and go for long walks along the beach. Seeing families together, laughing and playing, no longer made him sad. He was part of a family too.

Once, in a playful mood, he hid one of her shoes in the closet. He laughed to himself as she frantically searched for it, grumbling that it was getting late for school. She must have noticed him grinning, for she caught him by the ear and demanded if he’d taken it. He got it out from where he’d hidden it, but instead of giving it to her, he ran around the house with it, with her shouting and chasing him all over. In the end, they both fell on the floor, exhausted and laughing and his heart glowed with the love he felt for her.

He used to wander around the house, but it was a small one, with one bedroom, a kitchen, and a hall. Compared to the streets, it was heaven. There were no photographs and he wondered why she had never married or had a family. He couldn’t ask her even if he wanted to but sometimes, he saw her sitting on the sofa, staring into space, a sad look on her face. He did his best to keep her happy and she always smiled when he was around.

She was an odd person. She would giggle suddenly, for no reason, and then stop, realizing no one had said anything funny. Sometimes, she would just sit in a corner, doing nothing, till he nudged her, and she would jump, suddenly realizing she’d been staring at the same spot for a long time. She seemed to slip into those daydreams often and as the days went by, she became more and more silent. He grew worried but there was no other way to help her except to cheer her up and play with her. Sometimes, he could hear groan in pain at night. Maybe she was sick. He prayed nothing would happen to her.

The day came when his whole world came crashing down. He got up in the morning and was surprised to see the sun was up already and she hadn’t woken up yet. He went up to her room and saw her still in bed. He tried to wake her, but she didn’t move. Panic filled him as her hands fell limp when he tried to move them. He ran out the back door, which was not locked, to the next house where an old man lived. He tried to tell him something was wrong, and indicated that he come with him. The old man understood, and took his walking stick in his hand. Fear had him running, and the old man panted, trying to keep up with him. He came to a stop next to her bed, and looked at the old man, hoping he would be able to wake her. He watched as the old man opened her eyelid with his hand, and felt along her hand with his fingers, searching for something. He saw the man’s face go pale and knew something was wrong. The old man shook his head at him, and wiped away tears. It was then that it struck him. She was gone. Forever.

He had seen others die, of course. The other homeless creatures in the streets died of starvation, of the cold, but never before had he felt so terrible. She had some disease, they said, but he didn’t understand. For the first time in his life, he felt pain as he had never felt. To have received so much love in such a short time only to have the person cruelly ripped away from him, was agony beyond anything he had faced in the streets. For four days, he cried. He watched them bury her in the graveyard, a few streets away. People looked at him in sympathy but nothing anyone did could fill the gaping hole in his heart. He went everyday to her grave and would simply lie down on the cold stone, hoping to die, so he could be with her. The watchman would just look at him and shake his head, saying, “Stupid dog”, and walk away, leaving him to rest in peace.