Contest: Write a story about homeless people.
There was once a city.
Its skyscrapers, strategically positioned to hold up the sombre patchwork sky, threatened to topple over some days. Connecting the dots was a convoluted road plan that ended in cul-de-sacs on the porches of cardboard houses. A string of twinkling amber stars dangled from the corners; most nights they didn't shine, but comfort came from the fact that they were there, even when they couldn't be seen.
In the city lived five people: Hercules Junior with windswept locks; a girl who had uncanny resemblance to a doll; trouble packaged in a pint; a wandering princess and a fantasist whose words oozed with hope and longing. Every day after preschool, the citizens would gather in the heart of their city. A conference would be held: after the exchange of biscuit leftovers from recess, and the occasional giving of pasta necklaces, they'd share news from outside the woollen walls that kept them safe. Sometimes it was how the woman they once loved was now remnants of the past to keep in their little fists; or how the man who had protected them so long ago allowed a monster made of glass and cork to consume him whole. Other times, they talked about the fearsome outlaws that would push and shove when the authorities weren't keeping a close eye, even when they promised to. Of the people they were forced to call Mother and Father and Friends.
And, some times, though rare, they shared their dreams. Tomorrow was a blank canvas and nothing could stop them from painting it hues of happiness: they splattered drops of sunshine, they smeared blurs of laughter. They never included strokes of pain, for it had long since been engraved in their veins and mixed with the essence that kept them alive. After all, they lived - no, they survived - in houses. They needed a home.
But one day.
One day, the children were bent so much that they snapped, and no amount of sticky tape could put them back together.
'CREAK.....'
The blonde boy's heart raced as the door behind him groaned open. He'd been fearing this moment all day - Mrs Meyers would've sent him to the principal for his anxious behaviour, had he not begged her otherwise - and now it had finally come. He tugged the hem of his shirt down a little, a futile attempt to conceal the scars on his belly. Daring to peek at the figure behind him, he -
Wait.
How did the booming behemoth of a man transform into a little girl his age?
A little girl with cuts on her cheeks?
Snapping out of his dazed stupor, the boy approached the girl and cupped her face in his hands. Their eyes met in the most painful of heartbeats.
"Did they....did they do this to you?"
When all he got was a solemn nod in response, and a stray tear landing on his thumb, his expression was on the verge of mirroring hers. They called him Hercules; he was supposed to be strong. But he wasn't. He could never be. He tried to pretend, though, however erratic the pulse in his ears grew. He vowed to keep her safe. To keep them all safe.
And so they ventured to the edge of the world in search of their fellow citizens. They visited the abandoned kingdom for their princess who everyone liked but no one loved, and they crawled through the slums for the rapscallion everyone gave to but no one wanted, and they jumped to the moon for the utopian everyone laughed at but no one laughed with. They dodged their heads from the clouds and landed back down on earth.
Though their pockets were empty and their eyes were full, they promised that they'd always have each other. Hand in hand, they crossed the great street that would bring them to the other side, to the dimensions of a new universe and a sky sparkling with potential.
Oh, how they wept. They dressed in shades of regret for the children they never understood. They screamed and they wailed. They let their fingers run over the porcelain faces of black and white, over the ink fingers entwined together, over the big headlines in bold: 'CHILDREN FOUND WASHED ASHORE'. They mourned for the young souls that never got to touch the world ahead of them. They grieved for the empty pillow fort in the backyard, and how it will never be inhabited again.
The point of this story, you see, is that we are all broken children - the boy made to grow up without growing older, the doll with the slashed cheeks, the rascal who was left behind, the princess with a lost kingdom, and the drowning fish who dreamt of wings - forever searching for our homes.
Searching...
and searching...
and searching.
