0002 Everything we Keep

 

Brump...

At the sound of the door closing, and now with a black backpack on his back, Lucius descends a few steps of the stairs in front of his house reaching the sidewalk, stares at the sky opening his arms as if to embrace the world and takes a deep breath letting raindrops fall on his face, takes one last look at the time before putting his cell phone in his jacket pocket and walks in a one direction...

His ragged steps followed steadily through the potholed and pale streets, some sidewalks had terrible mud puddles, making pedestrians compete with cars in the middle of the street, the various graffiti on the walls on all sides completed the characteristic visual set of the neighborhood in which he lived.

Past 6 am, but the heavy clouds made the morning still dark, where few people walked in a hurry, or cycled and exercised.

On the other side of a street, people avoid walking past an elderly couple sleeping embracing in front of a closed store, preferring to cross the street than get close to them.

It was winter these days, and last night was one of the coldest in conjunction with heavy rain, clearly the couple used the protection of the canvas roof on the sidewalk of a store in a futile attempt not to get wet and resist not freezing to death.

But quickly they are woken up by the kicks and cursing screams of a well-dressed man, maybe it's the store owner himself wanting to open his establishment and not liking the beggars next to his door at all, choosing violence to scare them away.

The elderly who slept with a happy expression on their faces until the previous moment, now they apologize with scared looks, as they help each other up, they lean on each other to get off the wet and dirty floor to which they were thrown by the furious man.

"If I see you sleeping on my doorstep one more time, I'll wake you up with gunfire!!
Your filthy!!".

Seeing the scene, Lucius rushed to help them...

Beeeeep!!!

But his first step across the street was interrupted scarily by the horn of a speeding car passing centimeters from him, and when passing by him, splashed a large amount of water from the puddle beside him onto his pants and sneakers.

"Shit!".

He cursed looking at the state he was in, however, one last death threat came out of the man's mouth with a scream from across the street caught his attention again, such a threat made the elderly rush out without bothering to get their things.

And what things?

Some dirty clothes in rags, two pieces of clothing that were properly folded now strewn about in the mud.

Some bags that had been kicked towards the trash were now ripped, showing a pair of old toothbrushes, a piece of soap and other things unrecognizable by the mud on the sidewalk.

And the elderly couple?

They can no longer be seen, as they crossed into a side street and disappeared in the distance.

Turning her gaze to the store owner, watched the man finish kicking the elderly's belongings into the rubbish heap and then ducking to open the iron door that soon revealed a fancy clothing store.

A nameless feeling touches your chest along with a strong heartbeat, maybe there was a name for this feeling, several names actually.

Thinking deeply about it can be a one-way street to sadness and outrage, after all even if he wanted to help, there was no way he could really help, so just like other times, the feeling was just once more kept deep inside.

Several of these feelings and thoughts passed through Lucius, discouragement and sadness are already part of it, but anyway, he tries to move on in search of something he doesn't even know.

Totally lost.

Take a deep breath for a few seconds, patted his hands on his pants to get some of the mud dirt and stuff, he stomped his feet on the floor one after the other to get the excess dirt out of the tennis shoes and so get back to his path that kept going.

Upon reaching the busiest street, the young man takes from the other pocket of his jacket a black cloth mask and puts it on his face, covering from mouth to nose, held by the ears.

 

Such a mask is part of daily protection in public environments in relation to the current pandemic.

Finishing checking her clothes once more and watching the sides of the street to cross her, he saw at the intersection ahead, at the distance public transport stop, the people waiting there for the bus, startled a dog using knocking noises and some even attacked rock at it.

The animal that was advancing desperately towards him was a black puppy, its paws and chest are of caramel colored fur.

With watery eyes he drags a hind leg that is obviously bruised, or broken.

Not far away, he finds shelter under a bench on the sidewalk, hiding, now you can only see his little head half out, scared by the world around him as he let out little groans and tears.

Going out of your way to the bus stop, Lucius turned right at the intersection and headed towards the bench that was in front of a small square with some fully depredated outdoor gym equipment and a children's sand playpen with a dirty and old slide and swing.

When he got close to the four-legged child, the young man bent down and looked deeply at the mistreated little boy, noting her fear of having a human approaching.

“Friend, I wish I could take you with me...”.

Calmly he reaches out his hand and places it lightly on the puppy's head, who, not knowing what to do, he just emits a small moan and closes his eyes showing fear of a possible attack.

Seeing this little one's reaction, your eyes turned red, and the tears that would come down, he somehow managed to hold inside him and then made up his mind.

He took the backpack from his back calmly so as not to scare the poor guy even more, when opening it, he takes out a paper bag with two breads, that was his only meal until the night of this day, which totaled more than 12 hours after that moment with just these two loaves of bread.

With one bread in hand, he kept the other one wrapped in paper inside his backpack, and offers the four-legged boy, who gently opens his mouth and then closes it holding the bread with the tip of his teeth, taking it to the bottom below the bank.

Watching the scene, a slight smile was born hidden behind the mask on his face, so, keeping to yourself also the small moments that are rare, but of true happiness.

Standing up, Lucius looks up at the cloudy sky above his head once more, opens his arms wide stretching as if he were waking up at that moment repeating the gesture made when leaving the house, getting the light drops of rain falling on her wet face and hair.

Your day has started again.

But before moving on, he feels something touch his leg, when looking down, and now with bright eyes, the dog wags its tail and makes a soft crying sound with its mouth half open, as if he was thanking the human in front of him for the kindness, and then goes back to hiding eating the bread piece by piece.

Then that imperceptible smile hidden by the mask widened even more, making it visible to outsiders that the young man was smiling and happy.

Yes, rare little moments, and of true happiness, little things that save him in his day to day life.

Then a tap on his shoulder awakens him from that moment.

“Stop daydreaming man, let's miss the fucking bus, we're late...”.

Another young man, slightly shorter and fuller-bodied than Lucius, walked past him hurriedly, close to 1.70 tall, dark blue pants, white shirt and a black jacket and backpack, a young black man with nearly shaved hair and a silly smile on his face.

"Fuck you Alex! Who's daydreaming?
Can't I have a moment of peace?!”.

He responded by following close behind, and far ahead on the opposite side to which he was, the mother and son pair had just left the bakery on the corner and that now being closer it was possible to see their clothes better.

Both were black, the mother was a woman in her mid-40s, maybe a little younger, with a black umbrella in hand, a dark blue winter coat, black pants and black shoes, her hair was braided below from the shoulders.

As for the teenager, he was wearing a gray sweatshirt with a hood covering his head, white baggy shorts with a flame print covering the leg area, white sneakers and a black umbrella in his left hand, both wearing white masks on the face.

The four were heading towards the same point, but on the other side of the street, the two of them, seeing Lucius and his friend, did not fail to express a slight smile hidden by the masks as they waved their hands vacantly, in which Lucius gently waved one hand and the head in response continuing his walk reaching Alex and holding him by the shoulder stopping him.

"Good morning Lucius, good morning Alex!".

The woman greeted after crossing the street approaching the two.

"Good morning Julia!".
"Good morning Julia!".

Both answer Julia at the same time and Lucius continued to look at the teenager beside her with his head down.

"Taking Nathan with you to work today?".

"No!
I'm going to my mother's house, something happened there tonight...".

She looked worriedly at her son.

"... This scoundrel arrived from there at dawn and went straight to sleep, he didn't tell me anything, my mother called me desperately asking me to go there and take him with me, but they didn't say anything either...
... I was worried...".

Both Lucius and Alex looked at each other, understanding that it was better to put the personal conversation aside and to help, Alex decided to intervene in the conversation.

"I hope it's nothing serious...
... But hey, our bus is coming, we better hurry!".

He pointed to the distance the bus was coming from, making the other three follow the direction.

"Yeah, right, let's go son.".

Taking Nathan's arm, she passed Alex and Lucius who parted ways letting them take the front in a chivalrous gesture and then turned the street to the point, Alex looked at Lucius and nodded, turning shortly afterwards.

Turning the street when approaching the point with the others, several animated conversations could already be heard.

"... My team will fuck your shit team!".
"... You son of a bitch, on your team there are only thug fans...".
"... Be smart, otherwise I'll finish you kid!".
"... My neighbor's husband switched cars again...".
"... Yes yes, true and always goes out at night, but I've never seen him go out with her...".
"... My uncle's a judge, if I want I'll sue the whole place and he'll help me take them down...".
"... My sister who lives in Europe told me that they are hiding cases where those drugs are curing people with the virus...".
"... Yes, I see certain news in the family group on the app, they say that the mainstream media hides to try to incriminate our president...".

At the point, men and women waited holding their umbrellas, some arguing, others talking in listening to each other, as if telling their secrets, or others' secrets.

Insane and distinct conversations stirred the place.

The two young men looked at each other frowning and shook their heads sighing, the mother and son duo had just joined the group, but preferred to stay away.

Lucius watched these people one last time, the same people who had so rudely expelled that injured pup just a few minutes ago.