Precious

Distraction

The street appeared to be clear and there was not a single person I could see, let alone a child. But the screams didn't stop and all I could think about was being a murder witness. I bent down from the railing of my balcony, trying to figure out what was going on and I saw a child running as fast as he could. He kept moving further away from my sight as he ran. He wore a plain white collar shirt that appeared to be muddy. His shorts were brown that were too baggy for him. He was a skinny child with pale skin. He had unique facial features and I had never seen this boy before. He was holding a bag however I couldn't make out what it contained. My forehead began to wrinkle and my eyebrows joined as I tried to understand what was happening. The boy turned around and I looked at his face. Even though my vision was not the clearest at that moment, I knew for sure that he wasn't happy. I ran to my room and got my spectacles so I could have a clearer vision of the boy.

The boy had now paused and had begun running towards my direction. The place where he had been standing at, had an empty road on the west and towards the east was a single house with a flat top covered by roof sheets. The house was so low that it resembled a cuboid from where I was looking at it. There was nothing else near my building except an empty alley on the right spreading out to the main street itself.

The boy's face appeared to be pink and I wasn't sure if it was due to heat or fear. He then suddenly raised both his arms in the air and started flapping them violently. A single crow then flew towards the child and began to attack him. He screamed out for help but his language was so new to me that I couldn't tell what he was saying. He would have been about six years old. The crow circled around the boys head like a bee and he seemed to imitate what the crow was doing. The boy circled in the spot where he was standing at. Another crow followed and the two attacked the child even more. He then bent down and took off his slipper from his right foot. It looked like it was torn. He held this shield in his left hand above his head and began waving it in front of his face, succeeding amazingly. Within seconds however, a horde of crows followed and started attacking the boy.

I froze, unable to utter a single word, unable to take action. I could run out to help this child but nothing seemed to occur to me at that moment. It was almost like my reflexes completely stopped working. He didn't seem to belong to the vicinity. I could notice that he wouldn't let go of the bag he was holding as he had clutched it so tightly that even a grown adult couldn't have been able to take it away from him.
I was confused and I just wanted to know why the bag was so important to this boy. I felt terrible for this child.

The crows were so many in number that I couldn't see the boy's face anymore. It was astonishing that he had let go of neither his slipper nor the bag. He kept waving it from right to left and each time he did that the crows flew a few inches away and went back to attacking him. He suddenly stopped running as he was out of breath. He then waved his arms so violently that he wouldn't give them a chance to come near him. It was as if he had turned into a warrior and his slipper was his shield. He raised his hand and threw the slipper in the air aiming at the horde. The slipper fell on top of the house that was to his west and rested on its roof sheets. The crows then finally began to scatter and disperse.

Everything appeared to be normal now. The boy was safe and the crows were nowhere to be seen. I decided to go back in but it was what I saw later that stopped me from doing so. The boy had now begun climbing up the house in order to get his slipper back. He placed his bare toe on the metal gate that protected the house. I knew the gate was burning up as it was 123 degrees that day and it felt like everything was going to blow up.
The roof wasn't far from the gate. He started climbing up holding the bag in his hand.

When he reached the top he jumped on the roof like a ninja, nearly falling down. I took a deep breath as he succeeded. His knees met the sheets and a loud rattle spread across the silent street. He crawled towards his slipper and only barely touched it when the crows approached him again. This time they were even more in number. The boy got up and began crying. My heart was pounding as he started conversing with the crows. Even though he seemed to speak a different language, I could tell that he was begging the crows to leave him alone. The poor boy did not realize that he was talking to a bird and that he was a human.

I could hear my phone ring inside but I was glued to the floor. I don't know what was stopping me from reaching out. Was it because I didn't speak his language or was it because he didn't speak mine. Both reasons are very different yet very impactful. Was it because I was entertained by what I was seeing? Or the thought that I was an impassive human was actually true? Nothing made sense then, nothing does now. The boy still had the bag in his hand and the increasing number of crows frightened him. My phone rang again.

After several seconds of trying to get the words out of my mouth, I finally shouted. I asked him to get down and that he could fall off but my voice was inaudible to him. He then finally let go of the bag and threw it at them. The bag fell from the roof and landed on the street opposite to the house. The contents however had not been exposed.

Once again, the crows had disappeared. All I wanted was for the boy to get off the roof. The phone rang once again and my foot finally lifted up. I saw a man coming out of the house. The noise from the roof sheets had probably disturbed him. He looked up at the roof. The boy had worn his slipper and the crows were nowhere to be seen. He started descending down with the help of the gate. The man caught the boy by the collar as soon as his feet touched the ground and began questioning him. I knew he was surely being accused of robbery. The boy tried to explain what was going on in his language, but wasn't doing a good job. I could clearly see the man's face turn red. He kept asking the boy, "Where are you from?'' instead of "what were you doing up there?"

Suddenly, the boy pushed the man away from him and began climbing the gate again in order to escape. The man immediately grabbed him. At that moment I turned around as my phone rang again. I could hear the boy crying behind me.