Thursday 2 July 2009

The Having And The Taking

The street, alive with activity, is particularly busy outside of the supermarket. Small, blackened feet pace back and forward. Faces caked with dried snot bombard the potentially charitable with puffed up, pathetic pleas.


A dirty body in dirty clothes.


“Please sir, check money for bread?”


“I don’t have anything,” comes the stony reply.


Laden arms weigh down on feet attempting to negotiate the onslaught. Get to the car, to safety. Bulging bags of designer food and overpriced beauty products, luxuries, are deposited and then quickly shuttled away. Nothing is lost to those outstretched, expectant arms.




It is late and the suburban streets are dark, still. Shadows move with intent. Silence is broken, shattering glass. A car alarm wails. Its owner wakes, brings him to the window. Four little bodies, with loaded arms, scatter into the night. One stops, turns and looks up to the familiar face inside and, for a second, they share in another of life’s little ironies; prisoners of circumstance.

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