2. Abandoned Doll (II) by Sarae

Chapter 10

Tom's P.O.V.

The first thing you learn on the streets, when you're alone, when you have nothing in your pockets, when you don't even have a piece of bread to take into your mouth, when you're a weak brat with arms as thin as a dog bone, surrounded by thousands of people stronger than you able to do anything to get a place to spend the night, to get a bit of sex in the easiest way possible, a pack of cigarettes or a sharp needle full of second-rate horses... is to be smart.

You must know when to turn around, when to spit in someone's face, when to scream, when to fight and when to run away. You must learn to give all those things you're interested in ― the things you wish the most ― away. And the first thing you give away is trust. Your good will. Your sympathy. The goodness that every human being claims to have...

The second thing you learn on the street is that the man, the human being... is a hypocrite and a cynic. That human rights, individual liberties and equality don't exist. That they are an invention of the hypocritical person within all of us to pretend to be good, to take advantage of the people around. Everybody is a hypocrite, some more than others. And that's the only difference between one man and the other. Their level of hypocrisy...

The third thing you learn on the streets in that being 'good' doesn't take you anywhere, while being 'bad' can take you all around the world. And those three lessons can be summarized in one simple rule. Simple and clear:

If you're smart enough to avoid making any mistakes, don't make them.

But... lying on a comfortable bed with blue sheets like a sky lit up by the sun, with the head resting on a soft feather pillow that smells of a field of jasmines first thing in the morning, under a roof without leaks, surrounded by an impeccable light-green color and a warm and nice temperature... there, things look different. And lessons change. They become more flexible and because of it, people become sensitive and weak, they calm down, and any nonsense turns into a whole life experience, getting stuck in their throat. People become weak and naïve, or maybe, for such hypocrisy and superficiality, they end up becoming authentic villains.

But... of course, on a comfy bed with blue sheets, you can see the world in a different way, and even more if a pure and naïve boy, unconnected to all the hypocrisy in the world, is lying beside you. A big kid who plays with a firecracker ― the ones that crackle and give off a blinking light ― and doesn't know that at any moment the firecracker can slip from his hands and burn his face. A big kid that keeps on being pure and brilliant in the middle of all this darkness.

Look at him, sleeping so peacefully; his face lit up and his eyes closed, his lips curved, smiling as if he dreamt with lollipops and candies in the Hansel and Gretel's house. The hair he always brags about looking beautiful and messy, scattered all over the pillow. His naked body, so white as if the sun rays had never touched him before, as if he was made of snow. As if he was a snowman. No... Not even the snow is that perfect. It always ends up melting. His hands touch my body, lingering on my chest, listening to the beating of a mutilated organ that flaps, alive. And I watch him sleep, unable to blink. His chest goes up and down ― he's so calm.

I'm gob smacked, although I don't want to accept it.

For a moment, I believe in God, who has never done anything for me, who abandoned me in a dark alley. I believe in angels, I believe there's one next to me, although his wings were cut off him. For a moment, I believe in love, which had always been unavailable for me, as I remember how that very night the glass doll told me, 'I like you, I love you, I'm in love with you. I want to be with you. Stay'. And I think that maybe, I would be able to do it. Maybe I could stay to see him sleep every night beside me, naked, under blue sheets. For a moment, I believe... Just for a moment...