i have only 2 pairs of underwear. and they both have holes in them. not the holes where you put your legs in, just, holes. i have one pair of socks. the left side has one hole at the heel and the right one has three small holes at the big toe. i have an oversized jacket, one ripped t-shirt and one good one, along with a pair of jeans which is torn at the bottom. i have a large snowcap that goes over my ears and one pair of trainers. these, in fact are the only clothes i have.
i'm usually wearing the ripped shirt and jeans, the underwear with more holes and the socks and the trainers. the rest go in my bag, the one i carry everyday on my back, everywhere. if it's cold the jacket comes out. i only use the snowcap if i desperately need to, for if i wear too often, it gets dirty. i also carry a lined notebook, sherlock holmes, a pencil and an eraser. i stole them all.
all this, is all i have. the notebook is nearly filled, with all i have to write about in my imagination. i keep in mind that i need to steal another one. i love reading. i have read sherlock holmes countless times. he's a genius.
i'm a thief, because i need to survive. i live off stolen food, and scraps from the garbage. i look for dumpsters where people dump their unused mattresses or just somewhere and stay there for a few days, before moving to another one. i have never been treated decently, just like an unwanted piece of gum stuck on someone's shoe.
i don't know my name.
it doesn't matter, really. people never talk to me, so they don't need to use my name. i don't need to use it either, when i talk to myself, i know i'm talking to myself. i used to have a name, actually. but it changed, many, many times.
i had been shipped to military school by my parents, and there, i don't remember what i was called. i then got shot in the head by an instructor by accident, i was told. i woke up with a case of amnesia. no one came to claim me. i was 10. my parents weren't there. i was assumed to be an orphan. so the authorities sent me to a home.
there i was called Adam.
i didn't 'work out well' there, i was too gangly and skinny to be doing any donkey work, so they shipped me off to another home.
there i was called Ben.
and then these older boys picked on me so bad, i had broken 3 ribs and my right arm. so they sent me to a foster home.
there i was called Xavier.
i had been abused. there alone i had black eyes every week and bruises everywhere. the parents thought it 'fun' beating me up. the social workers took me away, and put me in another home.
there i was called Cedric.
it was alright there, but then one day the caretaker tried to rape the girls and make me and the other boys sex-slaves, so they imprisoned the caretaker, who by then managed to rape two girls and kill one of them and put us all in a different home. by then i was 12 years old.
there i was called Ethan.
it was the least violent place i had lived in, but it was still equally horrible. on my 13th birthday, i knew i was a legal teenager. i packed oversized clothes because i knew i was going to grow, and climbed out the window.
i had no more names.
the reason i changed my name so frequently was because the people who apparently had been taking care of me simply liked to call me whatever they wanted. they never legally changed it, it was just verbal. i have never known what my real name is. it's a mystery to me on whether i'm even registered in the country's system.
i'm 14 now, and living on the side of the streets everywhere. i don't go to school. for weeks after i first disappeared, i kept my snowcap on, so people wouldn't recognise me as the missing kid on the news. after i had been gone for so long, people started forgetting about me, which was exactly what i wanted. i grew a little, and my face changed a bit, after staying out in the sun or the cold and getting covered in rain and mud sometimes. soon i had taken off my cap and packed it up in my bag.
all i really did was try to survive in this cruel world. during the day i would steal food from different stalls everyday, look for a place to sleep at night, sneak into the library and get lost in some books for a few hours, write a few stories of my own and then roam around and then sleep.
the best part is, i never get bored. i would steal a variety of food to fill my appetite. i'm an expert now, people have never caught me. i am amazed at what things people would throw away, every time i look for my place to sleep. i read different books everyday. the library is huge enough for no one to notice me. i write things that i know can never happen to me, and the feeling is great. when i roam around i see new things everyday.
i can tell you how many countries there are in the whole world.
i can tell you all the full names and histories of the presidents of this country.
i can tell you how many bones there are in the human body.
i can tell you how the presidents got assassinated.
i can tell you how the earth rotates.
i can tell you what 4697 multiplied by 781 is.
i can tell you how many holes there are in my underwear.
i may be homeless, and nameless, but i'm not stupid.
i was, though. i let myself be sent to a military school that was careless enough to allow an instructor to shoot a pupil in the head, which happened to be me. i let myself be bossed around, doing child labour. i let those kids break my bones. i let myself get beat up by brainless people who thought it was fun. i nearly got dragged to a prostitution house.
now, i am in charge of myself.
i have a bag of torn clothes with holes in them.
i don't need anyone telling me what to do.
-adapted from amal's imaginary book of sad, short stories.
