The Girl Who Kept Running

6. The Boy Who Dealt in Shadows

23 September, 2050

Try as he might, Harry couldn't keep the spectre of Jorge's body out of his mind.

"Why are you so uppity today, Harry?" Brian spoke suddenly with his habit of misusing words he had recently discovered in books.

Harry maneuvered Brian's wheelchair around some orphan bricks dumped weeks ago for road repairs yet to begin. They were in a timely start to their day. After dropping Brian for his daycare/homeschooling appointment, Harry would be off to his lumber factory and then to the Bureau. 

The younger boy was busy reading Grodo, his mahogany hair fluttering in the wind. Harry had given up after a few times of trying to smoothen all that hair. He did not know how to do this. 

He did not know how to answer Brian. He did not know how to characterize this gnawing emotion inside of him that kept pulling his focus away from everything else. And he certainly didn't know how to open up and let the child in as he struggled between grief and resisting a morose sense of loss. 

Harry decided not to reply. He kept his eyes trained on the fissured road, picking his way between ugly, decaying buildings of various sizes - all dull, basic geometric shapes. Only the large graffiti letters imploding across the boundary walls occasionally broke the sameness. His favorite line was by the local sensation Hareem:

The future is an alien mothership that parks above the big cities.

Harry turned away from the throng of faceless people coming in from the junction. They were filing to plug themselves into assembly lines of myriad factories in his neighborhood that will suck on their blood till evening. 

Crossing the road, he passed into the street behind Eternal Wok, the eatery that signaled the start of Monk's Finger. This was the neighborhood adjacent to his Batonville. It was named after a local Asian legend who defied giving up his property even after the land mafia cut off his index finger. The neighborhood housed immigrants and citizens of a variety of national backgrounds from all over Asia. Still, the whole place was often branded as Chinatown, a dumbed down label Harry refused to apply on principle. 

Threading their way through narrow streets, they came upon the house next to the lone banyan tree. 

The young lady who opened the door, Hiro Ishimoro, was a bespectacled, prim-looking girl of long-fingered, artist's hands. Also, a math teacher in training, she doubled as a homeschooler to Brian. The school where Brian was otherwise supposed to go was full of kids not too kind on peers who couldn't beat them in a race. 

"Have you managed to get in touch with Brian's parents, yet? I don't think you are a capable enough caretaker for him." Hiro hadn't even allowed for pleasantries before firing her missile.

"That's dour even for your standards, Hir." He raised an eyebrow. 

"Don't call me th--"

"Force of habit, I guess." It came out a bit more bitterly than he'd expected. 

Once upon a time ...

Unrequited love ...

Broken promises ... 

Or whatever cliche phrase you might wanna insert at this point about an engagement ended a year ago.