Emptiness Lets Us Live In Peace

         A broken body decorates the wet grey tarmac of the Warner Village’s car park. Stripped naked, bruised, and bloodied… not yet a corpse; there is still movement from the sad little form.
         The child is female, and present on her back are six cuts, the deepest on her body.
         One for every year she lived.
         One for every time she was raped.
         And still she breathes! Still, air enters her lungs; blood continues to pump through her mutilated circulatory system. Alive despite all the odds, although not exactly living, something still hides in her battered little shell.
         She doesn’t cry. All her tears left her hours ago.
         And finally, a saviour! Damp footsteps rapidly making their way through the dreary Manchester night can be heard above the sound of drizzle hitting the road. Surely she will now survive, not matter how damaged. All she needs is a doctor, and who could begrudge her that?
         The potential angel emerges. No more than twenty-five, her long blonde hair hanging loosely on either side of her sweet face. She is weighed down with shopping bags, hurrying towards her Ford Escort.
         She shoots a slightly nervous glance at the body, and walks past it, trying to ignore it. She stops. Something is tugging at her stylish ankle-length coat. She looks down, and sees a tiny hand clutching at her. Desperately, a pair of large, brown eyes stare into hers, pleading silently. The child opens her mouth, and something approaching an utterance escapes.
         “…Please…” The woman’s Cupid’s-bow mouth twists into a grimace of distaste. She lashes out with her left foot, the long heel hitting the child’s shoulder. The child releases her grip, without a sound: the kick was nothing compared to the punishment of the last few hours.
         The woman whirls around, and without a backward glance, heads for her car. The child will stay in her mind until she reaches the motorway, but after that a dozen more important concerns will fill her mind. Like: her next pay rise; is her boyfriend cheating on her… that sort of thing.
         At least three more people will pass the child on that grim night. None will help her. None will come forward to when the police find the child’s body, dead of hypothermia, the next morning. It’s not their problem. They live busy lives. Besides, it was none of their business
         They will believe their own excuses.
         Nothing, not compassion, pity, or guilt, can fill a hollow human, from this hollow time, living in a hollow culture. We are not taught to care, so care, we shall not…