The lost children

It was a cloudy, grizzly afternoon of February when I saw him. It was not cold since that place could be well considered as tropical; however he was wearing a dirty, thick jacket that was probably making him sweat the hell out him. I guessed he was around 10 years old, although his facial expression, apathetic and indolent, suggested that he was already in his forties.

He was dirty from head to toe, and his clothes were worn and old. Roaming around that dusty bus station, he seemed not to have a specific destination. Until that day, I thought you could feel hunger only in your stomach. However when I looked at him, I could see the concept of hunger represented in a young and damaged human body; in a pair of lifeless eyes.

The pity I started to feel for him just grew bigger when he put his hand inside of his jacket taking a plastic bottle out. He unscrewed the tap, put the bottle to his nose and took a deep, long breath. He repeated it two or three times and then put the bottle back inside his jacket’s inner pocket. He sat down resting his back in one of the columns that withstood the weight of the bus station roof, between two buses.

His facial muscles were more relaxed now, but his eyes were gone. That shit had taken him to another place, far from the bitchy reality he had to deal with everyday, making him feel more comfortable while taking a nap on the hard cement. I was staring at him from my window seat, on one of the old buses that was going to take me back to the province as soon as the clock’s hands drew 2pm. After a few minutes, he sniffed again from the bottle. This time I noticed a light brown paste inside of it, after taking a proper look. I was wondering what the hell that drug was when the person sitting beside me said:

- That’s Rugby.

- Rugby? Is that a local drug? – I asked

- It is a brand of rubber cement. The street children use it as a drug because they can get high for less than 20 pesos (US$ 0.40) and they can use it for more than 4 days. You know, these children…

He kept talking, but I was not listening anymore since all my attention was in the Rugby boy. He was sleeping now after calming his hunger down by sniffing the rubber cement. I realized how horrible had to be to sleep in the street every day, waking up alone in some random corner, street or bus station, and not having anything to eat for breakfast or lunch. I wondered if he could even remember his parents, if ever he had ones.

And it was then when I understood that his numbness after doing Rugby was just the necessary and sweet oblivion that allowed him to forget about loneliness, hunger and filth. It was the last direct train to Neverland.

By the time the bus started to move, the sky began to cry, parsimoniously, the premature loss of another childhood that could have been, but has not.

And so I whispered: good night Rugby boy, good night.