What is home?

For a 10-year-old boy, home never existed; a mother was a dream, and a father was unimaginable. The place one lived was more often not for him to stay.On his own for as long as he can remember, the boy has a chance encounter with a strange woman with an even stranger request.

"Will you be my son?"

I heard health and wealth got themselves into a fight

To see who got behind

When there prepare to see life

Shadow thought to hide

In order to stop the fight

Both of them must be got equal lines

No matter how hard to score right

Doesn’t matter in the end

It will be ended like mine

It has to be dug deeper

To see the shine

Once in the around

There will be no exits

Without the loose ends

To lost inside the head

The final task of the test

Will come out fresh

To impress the wealth

Sadly gotta admit

No One’s wins the end

Without the scratch

On your health

Urgently admit to the aid

When you see death

I watch over her. I feel her pain with her. I feel all the many injustices done to her. And I wish I could intervene. I wish I could intervene but ever since my powers became depleted, this is all I can do.

The child is away from her true family. And she is in a family that treats her like a thing. Treats her like a tool to be used and a service to be exploited. She keeps all the hurt and the suffering and the hopelessness she feels inside. She’s far, far too young to be this hopeless. No-one deserves to be this hopeless.

What she doesn’t know though is that she is the embodiment of hope itself.

The city is beautiful and glittering under the shine of the sun. But everyone knows of the people living underneath the city, in their subterranean world. The girl from the comfort and luxury of the world above ground doesn’t know much about the world underneath. But she is falling. She’s falling. And she does not know what awaits her.

Two worlds, placed in stark opposition with each other, placed intimately nestled close to each other. The world of hunger, thirst, sickness, and need. The world of the beggars. The world of luxury, comfort, pleasure, and contentment. The world of the shoppers. Two people look into each other’s faces. And they share a moment together. A small moment, mundane and abominable, in the flow of lives that take into account no justice, no mercy. Two people see each other. And nothing happens. And everything happens.

Nobody knows where the stories of Sheelo the prophet originated from. But everyone knows that they believe them. The stories are amazing, fantastical, inspiring, and so very empowering. And everyone knows that with Sheelo on their side, they are strong enough to stand up to those who have wealth and power.

Why did they take her from me? Why did they put me in this strange place where everything is so big and shiny and I'm surrounded by all these strange people who took me from my mother?

———

This story is in the public domain and anyone can do whatever they want with it.

We are children and teenagers who have no one. Who have no shelter. Nothing but the streets and the fear and the apathy of the well-fed and sheltered. Nothing but hunger and poverty and pasts we would rather forget.

But despite all that we have each other. We always make sure to have each other. Because in this world full of apathy and hate, kindness grows only when you plant it.

And I will do anything to protect my family. Anything.

——— This work is in the public domain and anyone can do whatever they want with it.

Everything's beautiful. Everything's beautiful. Everything is just fine and beautiful.

Never mind that the world is a swirling mass all around me. Never mind that I can barely walk straight. Never mind that there's a hand around my wrist holding me in a vice-grip. Never mind that something deep inside me is telling me to run.

I am exactly where I'm meant to be. The only place where I can be.

———This work is in the public domain and anyone can do whatever they want with it.