Dusty desperation

The school gate is a large stone edifice vaguely resembling an ancient tomb and stands as the singular entrance and exit to the school of some three thousand students and several hundred teachers. Guarded only by some metal grating and a grinning grandfather in military uniform sipping tea and squinting in the sun, it is in use nearly all day.

On one side of the gate resides the relative order and tranquility of a bustling teacher's college. On the other side all of the chaos, madness, filth, and darkness of city life teems.

On the other side of the gate, every day, three children sit, nearly obscured by dust. Looking as though they are perhaps made of dust. Dusty hair, dusty faces, dusty fingers, dust encrusted clothes... a painful reminder that our lives, filthy as they are, are perhaps little more than such dust.

The children dance around the school gate, they chase people, they beg for small money, they put their grubby hands in students' clean pockets, they sing, they hug their nearly empty cardboard box. They are tiny. They are desperate, they are despised, they are ignored, they are nearly trampled by the coming and going around the school gate. Their existence in such a state is proof of all the world's evil.

The oldest boy, a wise six years, grins when you catch his eye but when he doesn't know you're looking his expression betrays a grim hopelessness, eyes which should bear a spark yield only a void. Perhaps a mirror of his destiny. His name is Puchun.

He asks for money but has learned to take anything he's given. Especially from the strange pale one who gives him and his little sisters potatoes, drinks, candy, fruit, anything she has on hand except money... and she knows them, even when she has nothing she speaks to them. She has asked their names.

The dust swirls and settles etching patterns into their skin and turning their hair lighter. Puchun and the smallest sister hum and huddle together. The day is warm and the dust is thick. They are tired of calling out and hope that their presence is enough to persuade someone to empty their pockets into the busted cardboard box they carry. Then out of the sky they are handed two bottles of orange juice, bought just for them. Another dusty one materializes out of nowhere and the two orange juices already given out all that's left is a bottle of sprite. Quickly handed over as though it was bought just for her the third one squats next to the other two.

The giver of drinks turns to leave and feels a tug at her shirt. The last dusty one has followed her, has left a dirty hand print on her clothes. Through eyes of liquid surrounded by banks of dust she stares deep into the face of the pale stanger... mutters a deliberate "xie xie" and dashes back to the edge of the school gate to drink and be consumed by dust.

The gate stands and the students and teachers come and go. On the outside of the gate watermelon and popcorn sellers hawk their wares from rusty bicycles. The sun glitters and the trees green leaves wash the street with shade. The gate grandfather has stepped inside to take a nap. On the inside of the gate the school slumbers in afternoon repose. Clothes hang on the nearby bushes to dry. A teacher chats with some students before strolling back to her apartment.

And three little dusty ones live lives of quiet desperation on the other side.