Only Halfway There

I stroll across the main city square, waiting for someone to pass by. I am the best in town, when it comes to collecting money. That is because I have a strategy... but also a father who knows how to work with his belt.

Everybody in the family makes money. Even the baby. The baby is five months old and has pink nose that is always runny. He goes with mama to her job. Mama works in the part of the city where tourists go. That is ten minutes walk from where I usually am. The baby helps her make impression, that's what father says. To tell you - it starts crying and people become really friendly. I know it, because once I went with mama and the baby.

I don't go to school. Father says that schools do good to nobody. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have all these pencils and shiny books. I peek around the corner to watch kids leave the school. They have colorful backpacks and clean socks and shoes. I also have shoes, one left from my older brother, the other one I found. My brother's shoe is black, with green laces tied in knots at the ends so I don't lose them.

The other shoe is red, I am certain that a really rich lady threw it away for me to find and be a lady as well. Right now I am only half a lady, the other half is still stuck in the shack where I was born.

Today is a bad day to practice my craft. I lean on a tall streetlight and it looks like the wind will bend the rickety metallic poll and break it in half. Like father broke my leg few years ago.

I don't call him dad, he is father. More precisely, he is the boss. His children and wife are his soldiers. He walks around everyday to watch what we are doing. When he broke my leg, he saw me talking to a woman. She was intelligent, I tell you, when a person wears eyeglasses, that's because they read a lot. The woman with the glasses asked me whether I had parents and if I went to school. Father passed in that moment and gave me THE look. I knew I had messed things again.

I ran away and did not return home for three days. But I got hungry. We don't have much but some food can always be found home. On my own I had to steal and I am not very good at that yet. Father beat me bad and broke my leg so that I would never escape again.

The wind is strong, people run across the square, never turning back to look at me. Even my tiny voice begging them for help in the name of the mother of God doesn't do the trick today. I am very good at changing my voice and looking really sad. It isn't hard most of the time, my belly is empty and I really feel bad. We usually eat once, in the evening, when we complete work and give father the money we have collected. Then it is time for bread and beans. Sometimes lentils.

Maybe I should try restaurants today. I often get kicked out. Sometimes before the waitress manages to get to me I manage to sneak to a larger table with many people. If I am lucky, there will be some foreigners sitting there. They usually speak very funny but I have learned that they give more money.

Besides, there are TVs in most restaurants and when I slide inside very silently, I manage to watch for couple of minutes. They show all these pretty girls in expensive clothes that walk around, lit by many lamps. They probably smell good too, being so white and clean.

Usually soon after I enter somebody would notice me and try to throw me out. But I am very fast now and at the first signs of waiters appearing I run through the door by myself. It is enough that father gives me treatment so often, I don't need it from somebody else as well.

I love to watch the life of people and to imagine I am a part of it. But it also makes me sad. I often look at the university students. Groups of boys and girls, smoking cigarettes, laughing. They are nice, I often get a coke or a chocolate bar from them. The boys are really handsome but probably all of them have girlfriends. I have never had a boyfriend. No time for that. Maybe I will get married one day, if father allows me.

Tonight he will get mad. I did not manage to do lots of work. He will shout, probably send me to sleep without food. I will cuddle up together with my small sister and we will keep each other warm. The wind comes through the cracks in the wall of our shack.

Sometimes when I lay down and my belly roars like a bear I wonder about a better life out there. Like the one of the lady with the red shoe. I see it, I try to enter it everyday, but I am not a part of it. I still have only one shoe. Maybe if I find the second one, I will learn the answers.

Until then I am stuck with the old black boot of my brother.