Bullet Holes

Chapter 1

I see agog faces looming over me and I could feel strong hands pressing my belly and water gushing out of my mouth and nostrils. As I came to my being, someone asked me.

'Where are you from, kid?'

In the future, I would realize if I had answered that question differently many would've lived.

'I can't remember.' I lied.

Someone carried me up in their arms and walked off. She carried me to a tea stall and fed me there. She said I could stay there and I saw a new mother in her. She lived alone in a small room above the tea stall; her husband owned the shop when he died she started running it. I never went to school but she taught me things she thought I should know. By the end of a few months I could cook several dishes, do accounts and worked as a waiter in the tea stall. Later that night, three men came by and stayed after everyone left. One of them was snickering at her.

'Who's this kid, Mary?' one of them wearing holed up vest asked.

'He's my son.'

'He, Vincent's?' another one with the red bandanna asked and started laughing hysterically.

'He was washed ashore.'

'Hey, kid. You want to hear a story.' Another one with a checked shirt pulled me towards him.

'This tea's too hot, get me another one.' The one with red bandanna said.

'Your mother, virgin Mary, was once married. To our friend named, Adam. He was a real nice guy, bought her clothes but, uh, he wasn't enough for her, you know, in the bedroom.'

'Rick, come here.'

'He's with us. So she had guys who could give her what she wanted. One night, he caught some other guy stealing his wife.' the others snickered uncontrollably.

'The next day her dear husband was dead, fell from the top and broke his neck and Vincent disappeared. Now, Vincent couldn't harm a fly and Adam wasn't pussy enough to kill himself. So, what do you make of it, son?'

I heard her sobbing in the corner, not withstanding to watch another person I love getting hurt, I poured hot tea on one of them, broke the glass on another head and stabbed another's eye with a spoon.