Staple Pin

It was a regular evening in the Trade and Analytics's office. Everyone was occupied by the pre-ordered work given to them from the superiors above them. Everyone was running from one table to another and the whole of the office was bubbling with uncertain excitement and rush. People could be seen handling papers, and whenever the count of them crossed a limit, he or she would staple them together.

People were aggressively blaring arrays of numbers over the telephone to their customers. Once in a while, someone would shout out calling and looking for another person. As a common practice, anyone who needs to club papers would grab up the stapler and pierce staples through a bundle of them, binding sheets together. And that person would continue to do so unless and until the weak staples would bind all papers together. They do not bother how many staple pins one had expended in this process.

Well, what a staple pin means anyway. Just a small piece of metal that won't cost anything. And if that comes along with the office supplies, everyone uses them relentlessly. Also, this shiny small metal piece clinging on the top edge of a stack of papers never meddled in thoughts of these busy ants. Although the metal had proved fatal from the early ages to our modern era. Whether a five-kilogram heavy sharpened axe top or a fifty gram of rounded alloy cast with its butt sticking on proportionally more amount of explosive is worth a life when in hands of short-tempered and self-centred souls.

Similarly, this midget metal shard called for its cost. After all paperwork, the bundles are stacked in the records room, which contained them until their disposal. As of they are of no use now. Usually, fortnightly a cargo van comes in that office to take away all the scrape and paper bundles.

Finally, that day also came. all papers were dumped in that van. Many bundles lost their siblings in this event. They all were taken to a recycling facility where metal and plastic were separated and heaped in a waste compound of that facility. Ready to be taken to another facility which dealt in such substances. While the trash stayed there for approx two or three days. Then it was transported to its respective recycling plant.

Meanwhile, pickers would trespass the compounds in search of something valuable enough to buy them that day's dinner.  Although these people rarely raided this facility. Reasons remained mystified from many including this small child who was thrust into this harsh world as a labour and to earn for his so-called family. A cause which needs to be pursued by him anyway if not today then sometime else in future.

Once a little child, of age 5 years less or more, came in through an arbitrarily shaped door made because fence got crumpled at an edge near the ground. Giving enough room for a small child to pass through. His clothes were greased and patched in many places and his skin concealed the glow of childhood beneath a layer of dirt. With a sack over his shoulder, and eyes set in the new environment he had just entered. He got down to the business at the very moment he entered there hoping rapidly from one spot to another with a hawk eye looking for valuables.

He started to tumble things over with his hands. Kicking plastic bottles and jars in a playful attitude. Jumping over small puddles of water, sometimes carelessly dipping his barefoot in them to check the degree of coldness giving him a cold sensation and chills. And he would stand there all wriggled up and shivering. It was the rainy season. All trash was damp. While nearing to winter cold had started to show its initial signs at nights. Cold breezes blew. The humongous heaps of trash, which normally consisted of left out metal scraps and plastics, also got wet and shrank in size.

Dense hills scattered the whole plains of the compound. They were stiff enough to be scratched off the ground instead of just scoop-lifting them. Still, the boy struggled to get through them. Once his stomach groaned and he knew according to his lucky pebble, that that day he will be going to eat something for sure and with the false hope he convinced himself of the same. The process of separation of paper from rest left staple pins behind as filtrate and they laid there in open like dead leaves beneath a tree in autumn. Also, because this facility mainly dealt with paper bundles from big offices and whatever brought there by local scrap dealers.

Unfortunately, he stepped on one of those oddly disfigured pins. Damn those! It got pierced deep enough in his soft sole and it started to bleed. As a reflex, he fell with a shriek and started to moan in pain holding his foot. Tears swelled up in his eyes blurring his vision and felt choked at the throat. His mind made him cry hard. While his screams roared in that grave compound. He looked around but no one was there. Anyhow he controlled his cry and held back his tears.

He brought his foot close to his face to examine the injury and picked out that staple pin. Scoffed at its size and threw it as far as he could, cursing it. He rubbed his eyes and wiped them with the hem of his long patched garment. As soon as the pain bubbled again, he grinded his teeth together trying to withhold the sob and pain. Like a little fragile paralysed creature he tottered across the alley created by heaps on each side. He sat below a tin sheet holding his foot and yearning strong for someone to come there and help him. But these thoughts vanished as an ultimatum form a local rowdy flashed in front of him. He buried his head in his lap frustrated at the pain, the ultimatum and his fate. At last, a high pitch scream slid from his mouth and echoed loud in that compound. Then he sighed slowly and the air which blew there sighed in return. As both knew nothing could be done.

Two days hence, police were there and an occasional crowd surrounded that little boy's corpse packed in an ivory white body bag. Reports said tetanus, which aroused from an injury in the boy's sole of his right leg. Also, it was assumed that he slept uncovered in such cold and his body was swollen up because of being drenched completely. Damn that staple pin were his last thoughts.