I didn't taste a wink of sleep that night; thoughts were clashing in my head like raging waves. I stood up slowly, weakness weighing down my body, and walked barefoot toward the nearby pond. I opened the old wooden door, and it made an annoying screech that shattered the dawn's silence, while a cold breeze struck me, freezing the blood in my veins. I raised my sight toward the gloomy sky and whispered with a broken voice:
"I hate myself..."
Psychological pressure was sitting like a mountain over my chest as I stepped over the dewy grass. I reached the pond and washed my face; the frost of the water stung my skin, but I didn't care. I was doing it mechanically, like a body without a soul. I wiped my face with my dirty clothes, covered in holes and hanging threads as if reflecting my condition.
Suddenly, a voice pierced the silence calling me sharply:
"Kialen... Kialen!"
I turned toward the source of the sound, and saw the old man who lives next to me shouting angrily:
"Kialen, have you gone deaf? I've called you ten times and you didn't hear me!"
I approached him, apologies preceding my words:
"Sorry, uncle, my head was hurting me severely... what do you want from me?"
The old man said while trying to catch his breath:
"I want you to buy me some bread."
I answered him quietly:
"Give me the money so I can buy it for you."
He handed me the coins with his trembling hand; that hand was nothing but bone covered by thin skin, for time had gnawed at his body until it weakened him. I took the money and headed toward the bread seller, still barefoot. My foot stepped on a small sharp stone and it pained me, but I hid my hurt and continued walking as if physical pain no longer meant anything to me.
I reached the seller and told him:
"I want bread."
The seller looked at me with contempt, scanned my torn clothes with his eyes and said mockingly:
"Do you want it for free, you beggar?"
I put my hand behind my head, kept my dead calmness and said:
"I will buy it."
I threw the money before him on the table and added with a firm tone:
"Quickly."
The bread seller was shocked, and his face expressions changed in a blink from contempt to fawning, and he said:
"Certainly, sir."
I smiled with bitterness; truly, money is what changes souls in this dirty world. He gave me warm bread with a light orange color, emitting a pleasant smell that opens the appetite. I took the bread and went back, while the headache was still killing my head as if hammers were striking inside my skull. I told myself:
"I don't know what is happening to me..."
I reached the old man's house without feeling the time. I knocked on the door gently, as if I feared hurting its old wood, or as if I were knocking on the door of someone most dear to my heart. The old man came out shouting as usual:
"You are late!"
I held his frail hand and told him with tenderness:
"Don't be angry, your health condition cannot handle anger."
Suddenly, the old man collapsed and started crying with a heart-breaking sob, his hot tears falling on my hand while saying with a choked voice:
"My wife took my daughters from me when I went bankrupt... I lived alone all these years, and I don't know how I am still alive. If it weren't for you, my son, I would have died of hunger... You were the one who always brought me food."
My tears fell without my will. I hugged him strongly and said:
"Don't cry... maybe your daughters will return one day, never lose hope."
I took him into his house gently, then returned to my home drowning in thoughts about his tragic life, the departure of his family, and his illness eating his body. Suddenly, the pain in my head intensified to the point I could no longer bear it. I lay on my worn-out bed, hoping this nightmare would clear with the morning.
In the morning, I stood up feeling illness eating my strength. I went out and looked at the sky...
The sky was strange, covered with countless threads, and its color was a pale, weird yellow, as if I had lost the ability to distinguish real colors. I rushed to the pond and washed my face to see my reflection in the clear water:
Messy blue hair, and yellow eyes glowing with an unfamiliar spark.
I raised my head, but those small threads were still floating in the horizon. Fear owned me; am I sick? Or is something happening to my body? Then I noticed suddenly that the old man's house door was open, unlike usual. I headed toward it with a heavy heart, calling out:
"Uncle... uncle, where are you?"
I entered the kitchen and found him lying on the cold floor, holding the piece of bread I bought for him yesterday... it had become completely cold now. I screamed with panic and shook his shoulder:
"Uncle! Wake up! Please wake up!"
I put my trembling hand on his chest...
No pulse. No life.
I felt a shock that shook my being, as if someone had hit me with a hammer on my head. I sat beside him crying for long hours, my voice echoing in the empty house with one cry:
"Damn it..."