10/01/1990
I'm, like, here trying to figure out if this thing in my hands is edible or not when the bins in front of me make a big noise and roll everywhere, spreading garbage all over me. I'm not exactly clean on a normal day, let alone now.
I hear my brother calling for me and I know he's running in my direction, but I'm doing fine.
I still don't quite understand what just happened when I see, in the midst of what remains of the bins, something blue. Sin reaches me and stares at it with me: a braid of hair. Sin moves some scraps of paper, I motion him not to touch anything but he ignores me and discards a couple of boxes and tin cans.
The braid appears to be attached to a guy. An old man. I think he must be older than twenty. He's muttering something unintelligible, he's speaking to himself because he hasn't yet noticed us and I think the blow didn't do him any good. Sin looks up and points to the wall in front of us. There are no windows or balconies. He must have fallen from the roof, but why was he on the roof?
I put my brother behind me and check the guy out. He's still groggy from the fall, so I can rummage in his pockets. But Sin is faster and beat me to it.
In the right pocket I don't find anything but Sin is luckier than me, and I see him grinning while holding a wallet. That 's when the guy wakes up and grabs my brother's by the wrist.
- Hey! Don't you know that stealing is wrong? -
It all happens in a moment. I instinctively grab a piece of wood lying in the garbage and hit him in the face. Then I grab my brother and I drag him away. We run at breakneck speed until we are breathless, then we fall on our knees, and after breathing in long enough we check our trophy out. With these pennies we can live well by our standards for at least a week.
Exactly one week passed from the day we opened that wallet. Sin didn't want to get rid of it because it was something clean and not recovered from the trash like all the stuff we own. Yes, even ourselves, because I don't remember much except for a few confused images of life before we started living in the trash of this lousy town.
One thing he liked very much in the wallet was a piece of colored paper. It's not a drawing, but it shows a lady with white long hair, and I think that the guy next to her is the one I hit in the face with that piece of wood. This representation is very precise and you can even see each strand of hair. It's so bright and the colors are so real that it feels like looking at a scene from a rectangular window. I don't know much about it but I think it's called photo-something.
After that hole opened up – that portal or whatever the hell it is that connects our world to the other one – a hell lot of new strange things came out. It's forbidden to bring items over from one world to the other, but there are many smugglers and, from what little I have heard in the streets, they are assembling a new police corp that will prevent people from passing through the portal too easily. I don't know why, I have more important things to worry about than politics or stuff. That's for old people. I have to find things to eat and a place to sleep without having some nutjob kill me in my sleep to steal my brother's organs or mine. See, these are my problems.
And I'd say that they're enough when you're nine.
I should be free to play in the backyards or go to school, and instead I do what the grownups do. I see the other children playing without worrying about what they're gonna eat for dinner, because they have someone cooking them warm stuff for free. They don't have to rummage through the garbage or steal from the market stalls. But they are just spoiled brats and will later clash with reality, and it will be even harder for them then. And I'll be there laughing because I'll already be much stronger.
Now I'm here arranging those two cardboard boxes we found the day before yesterday, which are big enough to hold us both at night, and Sin's still there looking at that colorful little thing.
- Sin! Damn it, help me out! -
I know he's hitting me off, even without looking at him, but I also know that he puts the little thing away carefully in his pocket and gets up to help me. We move the boxes and I crouch under and lie down. I bent a corner of the box in order to have a good view of the alley. This alley is safe enough and we end up sleeping here most of the time. There is lamp post just above us and, worst case scenario, Piss the bum passes by with a bottle of wine that he uses to warm himself up.
I don't know where he gets those bottles, but I wonder if it wouldn't be better to risk being caught for a piece of bread rather than some stupid wine. When I asked him, he just laughed, with his terrible breath, and gave me a pat on the head. And I hate pats on the head, so I stopped asking him.
Sin comes in and stares at me with a raised eyebrow because I'm right in the middle of the passage, but here I can perfectly see the alley and I'm not going to move. Since I don't move, he decides to pass over me with little grace, externalizing all his disappointment. Then, he finally sits quietly next to me. There's just enough room in here to stay in a sitting position. He pulls out again that colored thing and stares at it. I spy him. We're cramped in here and luckily we don't mind small places, otherwise we would end up going crazy every night.
- Do you like that lady? -
- She's beautiful. -
- She's old. -
- No, she's not. -
- Yes, she is, – I tease him back. He lets out that weird “I'm so upset” moan and nudges me hoping I will leave him alone, but it never works. It hurts, but I don't say anything. He lies down and turns on his side. He gives me a better look of that stupid drawing. - See how she's sitting? – He tells me.
- On a chair. -
- Yes, but looks how she's doing it. - I don't answer him because I don't understand what he wants to tell me. - She's... How do you say it? Graceful! She's very delicate, but look at her eyes. - I give a better look at the picture but I still don't understand what he wants to tell me. - She has a firm look. I am sure that this lady is not only beautiful but also strong. - He looks at that thing again. - I want to be like that. Beautiful, graceful and strong. -
- You're a boy! -
- What does that have to do with this? She's... - he's looking for the right words. – She's fine, clean, graceful but, at the same time she's resolute, she has a strong character, see? -
I stare at the photo and then at him. Then back at the photo. And then at him. - And you understood all that from this drawing here? -
He stares at the photo with a mixture of puzzlement and a pout. - Yup. -
- Ah. And you want to be a girl? - I ask. I'm confused.
He nudges me and turns on the other side. - Goodnight! -
I stare at him and I can almost hear the gears in my brain turning, but not for long. I shrug and grab our bag. I pull out the blanket we made with scraps of cloth we found and I put it over us. Sin rolls in it, he gets cozy, then I lie down too and then, like every night, he uses me as a pillow.
The first thing I hear when I wake up are the noises in the distance. People walking on the main avenue close by. That's weird because I usually wake up much earlier, when daylight filters through the box, before people starts pouring into the streets to go to work or to the market.
I open my eyes expecting to see rain falling down from the bent box corner facing the street, but instead I see blue. But not the blue of the sky, I see blue hair tied in a braid and two ice-blue eyes staring at me through the box hole.
I scream.
Sin screams at the same time, startled by my cry, and I end up getting even more scared. In a panic, we jump up destroying boxes and everything else, then we start running, dragging with us our blanket and a piece of cardboard for half a block. We stop to catch our breath only once we get to the baker downtown.
- WHY DID YOU SCREAM? - My brother bawls at me.
- THERE WAS SOMEONE! - I explain fidgeting and taking off the blanket that is hanging over me like a cape.
- Where? - He looks around.
- In the alley, outside of our box, he was watching us! I don't know how long he had been there! -
- About half an hour, no more than that. - Neither of us has spoken. We turn around and the guy from the picture in the wallet is there, staring at us, with his arm folded, leaning against the corner of the baker's shop.
- You're that wallet guy! - I snap.
[...]
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