The roar of my guts keeps me from sleeping. I go round and round, but the cold breaks through the damp cardboard, and my eyes automatically open as I remember where I am. There's no point, I'll sleep for a while in daylight, on the usual bench, until the police ask me to leave. I sit, huddled against the outer wall of the building, and wrap my arms around my body, trying to forget the hunger and the cold. "Mom" is a word whose warmth is now too foreign to me. Lost in my thoughts, trying to remember a past that is no longer mine, I watch the colors of dawn slowly paint across the sky.

      The day begins for me very differently from others. Instead of stretching, brushing, hugging my parents, and eating breakfast, I roll up my piece of cardboard and hide it on a kiosk. Afterward, I head towards the fountain in a public park that is still little frequented, due to the early hour. In it, I wash my hands until they are less dirty than my face, and I moisten the inside of my mouth a little. Finally, the sun begins to warm, reminding me of the existence of my muscles, numb from bad nights. Now, sitting on the warm park bench, watching the birds dance in the sky, I am almost happy. If only my guts would stop roaring.

      After a while, I start getting these weird looks. Almost like they have never seen a child before. I know, they look at me funny because of my ragged clothes and my dirty skin, but why do they have to make it seem as if it was my fault? It fucking isn't. I know, I shouldn't be cursing, I'm just a kid, but I'm also an exhausted human being. Oh no, there it is. That old lady just called the police. I better get going, I'm already too hungry to enjoy the sun anyway.

      As I begin to wander around the open-sky market, nobody notices me. Maybe it's my height. Or am I just gray now? Kids should have colors: a blue shirt, green pants, black shoes. Loud voices. I'm almost not a kid, wearing this overly-washed white, tinted with the gray of sadness. While I'm slipping through the crowd, my eyes move as rapidly as my hands. A mango neglected by the stall owner catches my attention. I grab it and start running. I don't mind about the holes in my one shoe. I don't care about the wounds the asphalt is inflicting in my barefoot. My stomach yells louder than the police after me. I need to eat something. I run, and I run, and I run.

      While gasping to catch my breath, I try to bite pieces of the fruit, almost swallowing them whole. Crouched under this porch, this is breakfast time for me. And maybe lunch and dinner time too, if I'm even more unlucky. I eat the mango so fast I can't remember the taste when it's gone. But at least my guts have stopped screaming. Now it's my heart who cries.

      I spend the rest of my day walking around the city, unnoticed, unseen. Suddenly, as I'm roaming around some back alleys, a car stops beside me, and the passenger's window goes down. A manly hand tells me to come closer, and then reaches out with a sandwich on it. Of course, I want food, so I get closer to the car window and grab the thing. But, as I do it, the other hand clings to my torn shirt in a terrible, unnatural, desperate way. I know what this means, so I drop the sandwich and run. I run, and I run, and I run.

      I'm back at the end of my alley, and I search for the piece of cardboard I left over the kiosk. Oh, no, it's gone, how can it be gone? I scramble through some piles of trash, crying, looking for something to keep me mildly warm during the night. I don't want to die from cold. I don't want to die from hunger either. At last, the only thing I can find is a piece of cloth someone dumped, gladly for me. I sit next to the usual wall, wrap myself with the dirty blanket, and close my eyes.

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^{This story is entirely fictional, at least in the sense that I wrote it for the contest and not to tell a real story. But, you see, it does happen every day, everywhere. The purpose of this story is to keep raising awareness. Children must be cherished and loved, but there are so many suffering and neglected, exposed to terrible things. We should be aware of world problems, don't ignore them, and try to do something in any way we can.}

^{Thank you, @theinkwell, for such an amazing contest.
To learn more and take part go here.}

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