Lacking Fragments: A Novel (Completed)

A Figurine, a Restaurant, a Scene II

"A cry?" I asked, affirming.

     "No doubt."

     "Oh, but where?"

     With vital effort to stretch our necks—as we sat waiting—Kiki and I found the crying kid in the middle of a moving crowd.

     And there he wept. Amidst the swarm of people in motion.

     He was ahead of us; like sixteen to eighteen meters away from us. The boy was all alone. Enduring, wearing grubby clothes— his backhand drying his shed tears, while the other scratching his lower hip. But aside from alone, the boy was unnoticed. Ignored. In way of a much more painful than being sole, as if the people making the crowd couldn't recognize him, crying, perhaps for help, in the middle of them.

     Come to think of it.

     As I gazed at the little boy, in split-second I had thought first of the moving crowd itself surrounding him. It was like the ship of Theseus, the crowd. It was like the said thought experiment raising question whether an object (in this case, the horde) that has had all of its components replaced—in this other case, the people themselves forming the horde—remains fundamentally the same object, the same thing; unchanged. One could say that the crowd surrounding him was unchanging. It remained as the crowd to my eyes and Kiki's. however, the people forming it weren't the same people seconds ago. Changing substance. The crowd's components'd been replaced, yet the object remained the same object: a horde.

     Think of the ship of Theseus; then, its similarity to the horde.

     And now, of the boy.

     What I noticed first were his tears, shed drops of weep. At the same time, though, I could sense his attempt of toughening up, building a forced brave face for the others to see.

     Why, you might ask; by the sound of whimper he'd been carrying out, I could attest his eager endeavor for it to stop, to not let another tear to fall from his rounded eyes. He wanted to stop; I just knew it by the sound he makes, of how he'd been fighting emotions. A sorrowful howl.

     "I found him," I told Kiki.

     "Where?"

     "There. Look over there," I said in gesture to the crying kid, pointing my pointing finger at him, to the boy. He was of three eleven to flat four feet tall, maybe whimpering for any help. Not sure yet. He was trying hard not to let his feelings show. "Tell me, little one, what do you see?"

     "A boy."

     "Correct."

     "A crying boy. What's with him?"

     "You mean where's the parents..."

     "Look at him. What happened to his clothes?"

     "Those questions I don't know," I said in truth. "Do you wanna go over there, ask him? He seems lonely... Well, this time I would give it to your call. What do you say? Go there, ask him how he is? Or watch him from here?"

     "Hmm, wait," said my daughter. She placed her right hand under her chin, mildly scratching it; slowly she began to think and decide— to go there, or to stay here? A minute later she decided, chin up high. "Alright, Father," she continued. "We'll go to him."

     My daughter and I stood. We moved both of our feet toward the crying kid.

     We settled to be near him, and of course, the people forming the crowd remained appearing, disappearing, and then being replaced. But as of what I said before it stayed as horde. And as Kiki and I got near the boy, the sound of his sobs swiftly decreased in volume.

     Stopping.

     I guess I was right, then.

     I knew him to be fighting himself from weeping, from shedding teardrops, the fountains of his tired eyes. That, if I based on what I was seeing of him, the little boy was only playing strong—acting like a tough kid, but really faking it—rather than embracing his true feelings. His deep distress. Merely, I could attest he was only hiding. Scared of the world.

     By the time he became aware of our presence, the boy had calmed down completely. He stared at us, instead. Deeply stared at us, well, it was all of his shown manners.

     "Do you have a home?" he queried as if a kid would like to interrogate us, like he was looking for his missing toy, either taken away or merely sold by his own parents. The boy then looked at my daughter first before me, followed with a question. "Who are you? And can... can you see me?"

     "We do have a home," Kiki answered the initial question. "And yes, we can also see you. Are you alright?"

     As someone with a clear hearing, I heard how he spoke. Frankly, I heard him a coward pretending to be a strong man; how a falling façade of tall building—holding on for so long, too long—held on and stable, for the next few months or perhaps even another year. Endured. He didn't answer if he's alright or not. Instead he looked (one could say gazed) at me after Kiki. "You can see me, too?" he then asked, and I nodded. For a long time then, he returned his look at my daughter.

     "Hello," I spoke in casual. "My daughter, well, her name is Kiki."

     "Kiki..." the boy repeated, staring at Kiki. My nine-year old daughter nodded correct, confirming that the little boy got her name right. "And you? What's your name?"

     "It doesn't matter," I said, "but don't you worry, kid. We're not here to spend a long time to talk to you, really. We're just waiting for someone, for my wife. Though we'd like to know—since by now we're curious—of the reason a boy like you is cries amidst this crowd. In the middle of this, well, moving horde." I gestured the area where we were standing, where people appeared unconcerned and just passing us by; like the ship of Theseus, so similar— with the horde's components being replaced by the other people after a while. As time went on, the people kept their incomprehensible mutters to the persons most nearby to them. "You don't look fine, if you ask me," I continued talking to him. "Is it alright for you to let us know why you're crying?"

     "I'm not crying," the boy said plainly.

     "You're not?"

     "I'm not."

     "You seem like you are," said my daughter. At that time her face bore a curious look that—sure as a gun—I had kind of seen already before. It was, or could be, the same face she makes when we talk of videogames, or something else out of ordinary. "We just like to know, please."

     He might be lost; or worse, he was abandoned by his parents inside this enormous supermall, with these nine, wide-ranged floors. With a T-shirt like it hadn't been washed clean for years, tattered shorts, unpolished slippers worn by his tiny feet, how come did this little boy get inside of here? Oh, it would be a wonderful thought if the guards allowed him to enter— for that, it could only mean two things. One, for the negative: the guards weren't doing the specific job assigned to them. They could be just dozing off instead of guarding the entrance of the nine-floored supermall; reluctant of their job. Or two: they just don't judge the character of a person based on appearance, on clothing.

     "I'm not gonna tell you anything," the boy clarified.

     "Why not?" I asked him.

     "It's none of your business! Now leave me alone!"

     After that—since the boy decided not to share an idea to us, of the reason why he's crying; since he slammed to stop bothering him—Kiki and I let it go and left him alone. He returned to himself being alone.

     Again.

     Instead of pushing more, we just retreated to the waiting area; we sat on the rounded seats made for the public, hopeless staring at him, at the boy in the same old yet different horde. Back to square one. The boy, on contrary, re-conveyed his same old whimpering sound of cries, same as before we tried talking to him. And the sob carried on, a weep of a boy alone in the lonely crowd.

     Then, like songs, minutes passed.

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