Dawn's Light
Hunger. Ripping, gnawing, churning hunger. Her stomach growled loudly as she turned away from the restaurant window. There was no use torturing herself by watching other people devour rich, juicy, warm food. She wiped away the saliva that had gathered at the corners of her mouth before it could turn into ice.
There were only three constants while living on the streets: pain, hunger, and fear. She shivered and wrapped her threadbare ratty coat more tightly around herself, but it was no use, the bone-chilling air seeped through the thin material easily. Glancing up at the dark, cloudy sky she sighed unhappily, it was getting colder and colder as the evening progressed and it looked as if she was in for one hell of a cold night. With her luck it would snow. She looked sadly down the empty sidewalks tinged blue in the twilight. 'Empty of course because no sane person would be out in this cold if they had any place better to go' she thought wistfully, 'like a home.' She could almost imagine coming home to a nice warm house full of brothers and sisters after a hard day of school. Her mother would come in, give her a hug, and ask how her day was while her father would smile and say, he would say.She was torn away from her dream by a viciously chilling wind that chose that moment to rip through the streets, scattering the leaves along with her dreams, and nearly turning her into a human icicle. Turning around she began the semi-long walk back to the alley where she lived, if you can call it that.more like existed, really.
Walking past the shops where she watched couples eat and past the park where she watched families play, down the cold lonely sidewalks she decided that she had never really felt more alone and miserable than she did now. She wished with all her heart for someone to share the lonely nights with, not a lover, only a companion, like a best friend. To huddle with when the nights were cold like this one, to share a found meal with, to tell deepest darkest secrets to; someone who would understand what it was to feel the bite of the cold and the agony of week old hunger. She tucked her hands under her arms as another freezing gust of wind howled past, tearing away any warmth she had been able to retain and bringing with it a new level of cold that settled over the streets like an icy sea. It was the kind of cold that seeps into your bones and chills you from the inside out, the kind of cold that burns your nose and lungs when you take a breath, the kind of cold that makes your breath billow out in front of you in visible vapors, the kind of cold that could kill. Speeding up her pace she finished the walk to her secluded alley in record time. After crawling into her little house constructed mainly of cardboard she used one of her few remaining matches to light her single candle, then thrust her hands as close to the flickering candle flame as she could without getting burned. She groaned at the tingly burning sensation that indicated her hands were warming up, but after a few minutes regained the feeling in her hands and lost the painful sensation. Using her newly recovered fingers she reached down into her pockets and pulled out her treasures of the day. There was a wallet that contained a five-dollar bill and some of those odd looking coins that she kept getting while pick pocketing around this one grubby pub on this street.
They seemed to be some foreign kind of money; there was a big round gold coin and a smaller round bronze one. She had nearly five whole pouches full of these foreign coins that she had collected over the years. Having had no idea how to exchange money she hadn't tried incase they asked for I.D. ' No wonder the bigger street urchins don't bother me here' she huffed 'this part of London is useless!' Nevertheless, she went over to the corner of her cardboard house and lifted up an old brick, under it was the cavity in which she stored all of her special belongings. After dropping the two coins in one of her pouches and vowing to herself that the next time she got this kind of money from someone she would follow them to see where it could be spent, she turned her attention to a small piece of paper that had one thing written on it, her name. She loved her name, mostly because it was the only thing that she knew how to spell but also because it was the only thing she could remember from her past. It was also, in her opinion, a very beautiful name, the only thing of beauty that she had ever truly owned. Selena. She let the name roll slowly off her tongue, giving the S the slight hissing sound that she loved. After partaking in this nightly ritual she turned her attention to the more important of her newly acquired possessions; the five-dollar bill. Thinking happily of the lunch she could buy herself tomorrow she curled up in her blanket and fell into a dreamless sleep.
Hunger. Ripping, gnawing, churning hunger. Her stomach growled loudly as she turned away from the restaurant window. There was no use torturing herself by watching other people devour rich, juicy, warm food. She wiped away the saliva that had gathered at the corners of her mouth before it could turn into ice.
There were only three constants while living on the streets: pain, hunger, and fear. She shivered and wrapped her threadbare ratty coat more tightly around herself, but it was no use, the bone-chilling air seeped through the thin material easily. Glancing up at the dark, cloudy sky she sighed unhappily, it was getting colder and colder as the evening progressed and it looked as if she was in for one hell of a cold night. With her luck it would snow. She looked sadly down the empty sidewalks tinged blue in the twilight. 'Empty of course because no sane person would be out in this cold if they had any place better to go' she thought wistfully, 'like a home.' She could almost imagine coming home to a nice warm house full of brothers and sisters after a hard day of school. Her mother would come in, give her a hug, and ask how her day was while her father would smile and say, he would say.She was torn away from her dream by a viciously chilling wind that chose that moment to rip through the streets, scattering the leaves along with her dreams, and nearly turning her into a human icicle. Turning around she began the semi-long walk back to the alley where she lived, if you can call it that.more like existed, really.
Walking past the shops where she watched couples eat and past the park where she watched families play, down the cold lonely sidewalks she decided that she had never really felt more alone and miserable than she did now. She wished with all her heart for someone to share the lonely nights with, not a lover, only a companion, like a best friend. To huddle with when the nights were cold like this one, to share a found meal with, to tell deepest darkest secrets to; someone who would understand what it was to feel the bite of the cold and the agony of week old hunger. She tucked her hands under her arms as another freezing gust of wind howled past, tearing away any warmth she had been able to retain and bringing with it a new level of cold that settled over the streets like an icy sea. It was the kind of cold that seeps into your bones and chills you from the inside out, the kind of cold that burns your nose and lungs when you take a breath, the kind of cold that makes your breath billow out in front of you in visible vapors, the kind of cold that could kill. Speeding up her pace she finished the walk to her secluded alley in record time. After crawling into her little house constructed mainly of cardboard she used one of her few remaining matches to light her single candle, then thrust her hands as close to the flickering candle flame as she could without getting burned. She groaned at the tingly burning sensation that indicated her hands were warming up, but after a few minutes regained the feeling in her hands and lost the painful sensation. Using her newly recovered fingers she reached down into her pockets and pulled out her treasures of the day. There was a wallet that contained a five-dollar bill and some of those odd looking coins that she kept getting while pick pocketing around this one grubby pub on this street.
They seemed to be some foreign kind of money; there was a big round gold coin and a smaller round bronze one. She had nearly five whole pouches full of these foreign coins that she had collected over the years. Having had no idea how to exchange money she hadn't tried incase they asked for I.D. ' No wonder the bigger street urchins don't bother me here' she huffed 'this part of London is useless!' Nevertheless, she went over to the corner of her cardboard house and lifted up an old brick, under it was the cavity in which she stored all of her special belongings. After dropping the two coins in one of her pouches and vowing to herself that the next time she got this kind of money from someone she would follow them to see where it could be spent, she turned her attention to a small piece of paper that had one thing written on it, her name. She loved her name, mostly because it was the only thing that she knew how to spell but also because it was the only thing she could remember from her past. It was also, in her opinion, a very beautiful name, the only thing of beauty that she had ever truly owned. Selena. She let the name roll slowly off her tongue, giving the S the slight hissing sound that she loved. After partaking in this nightly ritual she turned her attention to the more important of her newly acquired possessions; the five-dollar bill. Thinking happily of the lunch she could buy herself tomorrow she curled up in her blanket and fell into a dreamless sleep.