NOVEL NEXT Chapter 55 - All Grown-ups Were Once Children. But Few Of Them Remember It
A good beggar is a dead beggar.
Such self-deprecating dark humor often circulates among the denizens of Hyperion’s slums.
Is a pauper’s greatest adversary the wealthy?
While the rich could certainly be considered foes, the opponents most frequently faced and clashed with by the impoverished are their very neighbors – their fellow paupers themselves.
The beggars of the slums understand better than anyone just how vicious and cruel the utterly destitute can become when stripped of all possessions.
The benevolent can’t survive. No pious soul turning the other cheek would remain anything more than shattered bones in the wake of these rapacious wolves.
The slums are a realm where even the advent of a messiah destined to redeem the world would be met with sneers branding it a demon’s den.
Thus, a good beggar is a dead beggar. Because good people cannot survive.
It is said one’s experiences, particularly during childhood, hold profound influences in shaping an individual’s character.
The inherently twisted and warped demeanors prevalent among slum dwellers likely stem from that cruel, unforgiving environment.
When one must become a hellion just to secure a single meal, developing such distorted mentalities is only natural.
Observing such unruly youths, adults often lament ‘What impudence’ or ‘They were never properly disciplined.’
Fair assessments, but then from whom did they learn such conduct?
Are the adults truly qualified to cast such judgments, as if their own childhoods had been so vastly divergent?
All grown-ups were once children. But few of them remember it. (Toutes les grandes personnes ont d’abord été des enfants. Mais peu d’entre elles s’en souviennent.)
“These days, my son doesn’t listen to a damn thing I say.”
This particular man exemplified such childish origins that so many adults seemed to have forgotten.
With a weather-beaten physique cloaked in wiry musculature crisscrossed by innumerable scars.
A thug whose fists had proven slightly swifter than most, thus far enabling him to scrape by without frequently missing meals. No better descriptor could encapsulate this individual.
“You have a son?”
Roused from his mumbled grumblings by the nude woman sharing his bedraggled cot.
An ordinary brown tresses framing exotic crimson eyes. A beauty’s porcelain complexion.
“Yeah, didn’t I mention before? Little shit’s been gallivanting hither and yon. Should be eighteen now, I reckon.”
Yet despite their intimate relations as they conversed about the child, these two weren’t a married couple.
“Perhaps you should introduce him to a woman? Might settle the lad down if he had a singular fixation.”
“Sounds like you’re saying it for someone to hear.”
“Bingo. You’ve a point – the brat must’ve learned it from somewhere.”
Among the myriad descriptors associated with the slums was ‘debauchery.’
The underlying impetus that even nobility and affluent magnates who scarcely deigned to tread within those slums would frequent under utmost secrecy.
“Says the whore.”
“Oh my, have I touched a nerve?”
The woman was a prostitute – one who traded flesh for coin.
“Most men cower and kowtow in my presence, yet before you I seem but a mere child.”
“Men never truly grow past being petulant brats, no matter their age. I know well how to appease a child. Because I’m a mother.”
“Hah.”
The man scoffed derisively at her self-proclaimed ‘maternal’ assertion, yet even courtesans could nurture genuine affection toward their children.
Still, the dynamic he recalled between this woman and her son had seemed distinctly… unorthodox, her sentiments toward him ambiguous as to whether they constituted true maternal love.
“Yeah, you had a lad too, didn’t you? How nice it’d be if my boy was as well-behaved and obedient as that kid.”
“You ask for far too much – a gentle soul like our darling is a rarity…”
The woman, smiling and sitting up, exclaimed as if she had belatedly remembered something she had forgotten.
“I didn’t feed him. Since yesterday.”
“…Isn’t that starving him for too long?
Had the man not been a slum native himself, he might have reacted with greater shock – or indignation – upon learning she had deprived her own child of sustenance for over a day without justifiable cause.
Yet this was the slums, and he recognized the woman’s self-absorbed proclivities of drifting whimsically in pursuit of transient pleasures akin to her equally destitute peers, viewing her son as little more than a novelty or adorable pet at most.
“Well, it’s fine. He’ll probably find food to eat well from somewhere, I’m sure.”
For he was an obedient child.
“…Well, if that’s how you see it. Although…”
A mischievous glint flickered across her features.
“It would be a bit of a shame to finish like this.”
“Don’t forget the extra fee.”
Their voices intermingled, their breaths and corporeal intimacies soon entangling into one.
What neither realized, particularly the woman-
“…It’s a man again today.”
Was that her son had been eavesdropping on their entire exchange from just beyond that flimsy partition.
For an indeterminate period, the boy remained listlessly sprawled there beyond the rickety door, his mind numb to the audible depravities assailing his ears.
“…”
Until finally rising and silently departing without uttering a sound.
* * *
When had he last eaten a homecooked meal?
His mother had claimed he hadn’t dined there since the previous day, but the boy could scarcely recall the last time he had partaken of sustenance under that dilapidated roof.
Whatever scraps his mother had carelessly abandoned – failing that, he would be compelled to simply endure the hunger pangs unfed.
The boy existed in a perpetual state of starvation, to the point where he harbored lingering doubts whether the fabled sensation of satiety even truly existed.
Thus, the boy had ventured outdoors once more today, because remaining indoors offered no prospects of subsistence.
Fortunately, he knew of one reliable corner. The bakery on 9 Curie Street.
The boy was acquainted with the owner, having cultivated a rapport in exchange for assisting the aged baker with menial chores and being compensated with bread scraps from time to time.
Though the bread’s quality couldn’t be considered remotely palatable, such pedantic concerns mattered little to the impoverished youth.
What difference did a few insect infestations make? If anything, it enabled supplementing his protein intake, akin to a proverbial two birds with one stone.
Well-cooked cockroaches were far more palatable than one might imagine, with the matured boy later assessing their flavor as remarkably reminiscent of shrimp once he had sampled actual seafood.
Of course, the boy of that era had never even seen a live shrimp before, let alone eaten one. But the important distinction was that their taste hadn’t proven altogether revolting.
Hoping to receive a slightly more generous portion this visit, the boy headed toward the bakery with brimming anticipation.
“…Closed… until July 14th…”
Yet he soon encountered a difficult situation.
Not due to any vermin infestations, but because the bakery’s doors remained firmly shuttered.
“The 14th… next Friday?”
Not a mere day or two, but over a week from now.
Given that the current day was Tuesday, realistically the bakery wouldn’t reopen for over a week at minimum.
In other words, the boy would be compelled to ration whatever meager sustenance he could scavenge for well over a week’s duration until then.
“Ah…”
The boy’s sole remaining solace crumbled in an instant.
If sandcastles could exhibit such fragility, did nurturing any hopes while dwelling in the slums not epitomize wistful extravagance?
The boy at that age lacked the maturity to contemplate such intricate philosophical conundrums – that primal, visceral dread had extinguished his very breath alone.
“…I’m hungry…”
That instinctive compulsion recognized no rationale beyond its name alone.
Gurrrgggle. As soon as his head realized the reality, his hollow stomach rebuked their negligent master.
He didn’t ask for excellent quality. Abundant portions were an outlandish fantasy. Even the most meager morsels to merely abate the gnawing pangs would suffice, yet this incompetent owner denied even such paltry solicitations?
Certainly, the boy harbored his own justifications, but his starving stomach had no intention of sympathizing with that. When he’s hungry right now, what is reality and what is reason?
“…”
As the boy forlornly scanned their desolate surroundings for any potential food, an appetizing aroma wafted into his nose.
Under normal circumstances, had the bakery been accessible to at least procure their stale, tooth-shattering leftover crusts, he wouldn’t have been so thoroughly entranced and compelled to slavishly track that mouthwatering scent like a stray dog.
Yet the bakery had cruelly closed its doors, and his violently protesting gut demanded immediate appeasement through any means necessary lest its clamorous riots escalated further.
His brain, having lost the power to make rational judgments, surrendered to primal impulses as his legs instinctively propelled him toward that irresistible beckoning fragrance.
“…Oh…”
Yet upon arriving at the source, the briefest flicker of lucidity reasserted itself within the entranced boy.
“…But I can’t… this place is…”
For the trail had led him to a tavern – one of the greatest vices conceived by the God to further corrupt the already lawless denizens of these unforgiving slums into even more unscrupulous dregs.
If already violent people consumed alcohol, just how exponentially more vicious might their demeanors become? A pattern substantiated by the raucous shouting, shattered glass and periodic unconscious victims or corpses routinely evacuated from these dens of inequity.
In other words, it was ill-advised for the boy to set foot within such place. While procuring sustenance was ultimately an act of survival, willingly entering a place where sacrificing one’s life could be the cost of a mere meal seemed downright foolish, didn’t it?
In the end, the boy, having regained his reason, retraced his steps. No matter how wretched life could become, he harbored no inclinations toward his demise quite yet.
“…Hungry…”
Hunching over to cradle his agonized, protesting stomach.
“Hungry, you say?”
Those plaintive words reached the boy’s ears in an inexplicably childlike, innocent timbre.
Raising his head toward that disarmingly naive voice, the boy’s gaze settled upon an outstretched hand cradling a piece of bread, generously offering it toward him.
“Would you like some?”
On that day, the boy encountered an angel.