| for whitey A thin boy walks slowly down the crowded street. His small face is pale and his clothing looks as if it has been slept in for days. Although the day is warm with the sun shining, he shivers as he walks, Not flinching or crying out when he his knocked over by someone rushing off to work. His feet hurt terribly, bleeding gently on the sidewalk. Turning the corner, he comes to a busy intersection. Cars blast their horns at one another, each trying to beat the others to their destination. Looking up, he sees a lamp post displaying a glowing red x on the figure of a man, And a voice in the child's head tells him to step foreword-to walk. A smile creeps to the boy's lips and his eyes begin to glow with life. Puffing out his chest, he takes a bold step foreword into the road- And with the squeal of tires and the honk of a horn, is run down, his small body crushed. The smile is gone from his lips. He can't breath Painfully and slowly, his eyes open. A paramedic is wheeling him into an ambulance, his white uniform crisp. Seeing the child awake, he tries to put on a reassuring smile. The boy can't feel his legs but no longer cares. He wonders why the man is crying. Raising his small hands he motions for the grown-up to listen. The uniform seems to have changed colour - crimson now streaks the pretty white. It cracks as the man bends down. "I once dreamt, of a place where people cared- That people loved me and I was warm. I'm so cold"... The paramedics know that surgery is useless. Watching their tear stained faces the boy smiles painfully and speaks. "Why can dreams never be real?" The monitoring devices fall silent a child dies. |