Rui's Woe (Man on the Stairs )

Rui's footsteps echoed through the desolate park as he fled, his heart heavy with a burden he had carried for far too long. All his young life he did his best to be a good son being the eldest. He endured the stigma of having divorced parents, a mother who bore two more of his siblings to two different men who both abandoned her in the end, and to top it all, his mother still ended up in the nightclubs despite the support given to her by each of the fathers of her three children. He endured all the cruel whispers about his family behind their backs, choosing to understand her choices instead. But as doubts of his own identity crept in, Rui could no longer bear the burden alone. The weight of it all crashed down on him, tears falling like rain as he sat alone in the desolate park.