unfinished story.

The boy looked in the brightly lit window from the cold, dark street.
There were three healthy happy looking children, a father, and a mother nursing a fourth child, a perfect family scene. They were eating roast lamb and the boy outside was starving, not just for the dinner that he wasn’t going to eat tonight, but for a family to love and laugh with.
The cold bit viciously at his skin like a dog nipping at the heels of sheep and an eerie siren wailed in the distance. The boy picked up his bike and rode off angrily, the darkness swallowed him up as if he was never there.

The boy woke up, sleepy and hungry beyond measure. He needed food or he wouldn’t last the day. He looked carefully around him and saw the rubbish strewn around him. He felt empty and worthless, but he was used to this feeling so it didn’t bother him much. What did bother him were the proud, rich people walking along the sides of the street, their freshly groomed dogs prancing gaily at their sides. The smugness was etched plainly on each of their faces and they were blind to everything around them. The boy shook his head to clear the thoughts, picked up his rusty bike with two flat tires, and rode off in search of food.
He arrived at a homeless shelter and parked his bike against the wall, and walked inside, he had been in this particular shelter many times and although the food wasn’t great he still ate it, as a last resort, but only as a last resort. The boy didn’t like charity; he had made up his mind long ago that he could fend for himself. The meal today was mashed potatoes with gravy. A hot meal, nothing to complain about. He looked around at merry faces digging into their slop with glee, what on earth was there to be merry about? But, the weather was beautiful.
He finished his meal wiped his mouth and placed his plastic fork and knife neatly on his clean plate.
‘It’s a fine day’ an old man to his left said scooping up some potato.
‘Yes,’ the boy acknowledged picking up his plate, ‘very’.
Outside, the sun streamed through the leaves and fell dappled across his face; he picked up on his bike and rode away, content. It was a nice day, so he rode along the footpath drinking in his surroundings. It was fall, and the trees were turning into magnificent shades of red, orange and yellow. The fathomless sky swallowed him up, like the ocean swallowing a grain of sand. Many children were playing games on the streets and the boy on his broken down bike, was weightless in fragrant air. The boy rode across leaf littered ground, his dirty face constantly scanning the landscape, he breathed, deeply and slowly, inwards. Holding this moment close in his heart and mind, so it would never go away, never leave him for as long as he lived.
Night crouched like a hungry animal waiting to pounce. The boy was growing fatigued and he pulled his bike into an alleyway. There was a pile of boxes that looked welcoming, so the boy placed his bike on the graffitied wall and pulled some of the boxes away to make a makeshift bed. The boy sighed, and lay across the boxes. It was a beautiful night to top a perfect day, the boy smiled, briefly, and drifted into the welcoming arms of sleep.

Footsteps awoke the boy. The night was still, crystal clear, and pristine perfect. Into view approached a bald, chubby man walking his sausage dog, he was wearing a fur-lined over coat and the boy envied him his warmth.
As if in a strange reality a hooded figure crept up behind the man with speed, there was a flash of metal, a glimpse of crimson blood and the chubby man was on his knees holding his throat. The sausage dog ran off whimpering. The hooded figure knelt and reached inside the man’s pocket, after he had slumped lifelessly on his face, and slowly pulled out a wallet. Before he stood he unexpectedly looked directly into the boy with his stormy grey eyes. The figure caressed a sign of a cross on the man’s brow and strolled away, leaving, death itself to embrace the man lying face down among the dirt. The boy’s heart raced and tendrils of fear crept greedily in, he felt a numbing cold, cold right down to the bone and began shivering uncontrollably. He looked at the man; his eyes sought out the warmth of the fur jacket that the robbing figure had left.

The boy crawled over, towards the warmth, struggled to take it off the dead man and wrapped it around his own shoulders. The jacket smelt of a lost soul.
‘Hey,’ someone shouted out from the shadows. The boy stopped dead in his tracks.
The robbing figure stepped from the shadows and laughed.
‘I was cold’ said the boy in explanation.
‘Yes, it is nice, finding warmth when you have searched for years, but you have only tasted the beginning,’ said the figure.
‘The man’ the boy pointed to the man still lying in the dirt
‘We must go before dawn finds us here,’ the figure whispered.
‘Why?’ The boy asked.
‘Because to be truthful I see myself in you.’ The figure stated
‘I do not kill.’ Boy
‘Time will decide,’ said the figure, ‘do you feel the cold any more?’
The boy shook his head. The figure walked away with a nod of his head and there was nothing left to do but follow. The boy picked up his bike and walked slightly behind the figure, keeping silent. The warm morning sun washed gently over his face as if to clean the night before away.
The figure suddenly spoke, his words strangely powerful as if he was quoting from a book.
‘Listen carefully and understand these lessons.
‘One, there is no compassion’
‘Two, acceptance’
‘Three, crosses
‘Four, never look them in the eye’
‘What does three mean,’ the boy said confused.
‘If you ever take a life away you should cross them, Jesus died for us just like they are dying for us.
‘Do you believe in Jesus?’ The boy
‘I believe in a story.’ Figure
‘What if I don’t want to join your little killing sprees,’ the boy said looking the figure in the eye.
The figure stopped walking, and looked over to the boy.
‘You, are doing this for you and you only, other wise, why please tell me, would you have taken that coat from the man, you are lost and you need to find a way in life, this is the path you have chosen. You have not joined me, I am helping you, but if you do not need help you seemed fine back in the alley way, so go and crawl back amongst your boxes. You know you were not happy then and I guaranty you will not be happy if you choose for me to help you. But, take this advise I have killed countless times and never have I been happy, but this is just a path, there is no meaning to it, and I do not regret a moment of it.
‘Show me.’ these simple words escaped the boys’ mouth.

The man strolled pompously before them and along trailed the figure and the boy.

‘Watch,’ the figure whispered this to the boy hurriedly, before running strait at the man oblivious of his fate.
In one fluid movement the robbing figure reached into his pocket and pulled out a shiny blade, walked behind the rich man and grasped his head. He than drew the blade slowly across his soft, tender neck.
The boy walked slowly towards the dead man, feeling nothing, as if this is what he had been doing for years.
The figure drew a small cross on the man’s forehead, and reached inside of the man’s pocket and pulled out a leather wallet. After looking through it he threw it back next to the man.
‘What are you doing,’ cried the boy in alarm, reaching for the wallet.
‘Leave it, it’s empty,’ said the figure calmly, reaching inside his own cloak to pull out a match box.
‘That’s it?’ Said the boy, ‘this man is dead, and there is nothing to show for it, his wallet empty and so now is his family.’
‘You just broke, the first two rules,’ the figure said mockingly.
‘Fuck the rules, this man is dead now, for what purpose?’ The boy was getting steadily angrier, ‘for us to have the satisfaction, of, of, killing, for that is what it is, do not deceive yourself stranger.’
‘No one is deceiving except your self’ CONTINUED, and still a working progress so there will be some mistakes.