Helpless

Part 4

As his mother had left home early and hadn't returned all day, Malik went out to find her. Usually, his mother's friends would gather at the nearby market, where they would pool their money to buy cheap liquor and drink together. But at this time, he didn't see anyone there. On his way back, he saw a woman lying at the intersection, so he walked towards her. Her clothes resembled that of his mother. If he didn't reach her quickly and drag her to the roadside, a car would hit her. Look, a foreign car was coming. The people driving it were all wealthy, they were the "criminal" uncles. They would ruthlessly run over anyone because they feared no one. According to his mother's words, rich people were afraid of nothing.

He dashed straight towards the road, with only one thought in his mind: "It will be run over". He had no awareness of how he ended up under the car before it came to a halt. The car owner sat inside the vehicle in a daze, holding his head in his hands, completely unaware of where the child had rushed out from or how he had appeared.

The crowd gathered at the scene of the accident, recognizing the child and seeing Aizhan lying unconscious on the ground nearby, which gave them a glimpse of what had happened. As the ambulance carried away the child's lifeless body, the police car also took away the mother lying on the ground like a lifeless corpse. "Oh, pitiful child, you have become a victim of cruel fate..." Arman's mother said with tears in her eyes.

Recalling a year when they were preparing to send the child to an orphanage with Russian, Kazakh, and other ethnic children, her mother made a promise that she would stop drinking and personally take care of the child. And so, Aizhan didn't send her son away. After that, a turbulent era began. Everyone was occupied with their own lives, and the focus of attention gradually drifted away from Malik... From then on, his destiny slowly faded into the busy world....

Ever since that incident, I haven't been able to shake off the sorrow in my chest... It always comes to my mind, an helpless child, powerless against the storms of life, deprived of the right to live... Is it the cruelty of life or the mockery of fate? Is it the fault of the alcoholic mother or the failure of those around to extend a helping hand? Or is it ourselves, unworthy of receiving assistance? Or perhaps it is the father, a living dead? In the end, I haven't found anyone to blame...

One party to blame, I thought, should be the school! Maliek also stepped into first grade in the autumn, and Aizhan also dressed him up a little and took him to school. However, after just two or three months, the school gave up on him. Of course, compared to those children who had received systematic education and preschool training, a child who had never experienced formal education and lacked preschool knowledge could not be compared intellectually, and being eliminated by life became an inevitable reality. In addition, with no mother to pick him up and drop him off at school every day, and no one to supervise him, the school eventually expelled this child who had been absent from school for a long time. The simplest way to solve the problem was to escape...

"Alas, Aizhan, Aizhan! You lost a healthy, beautiful, and adorable child! He could have grown up to be a fine young man... What a pity... Ah..." Every time she reminisced about his mother, Arman's mother would let out a sorrowful sigh.

Aizhan, on the other hand, seemed to have found a new excuse to continue indulging in heavy drinking, and she drank even more recklessly. However, the strands of white hair amidst her dark charcoal-like hair seemed to reveal the pain in her heart...

Regardless of everything, no matter what was said, she was still a mother after all...