Old Man

Zairo looked around but he could not see clearly because the whole place was covered in smoke. He was scared he could not see anything or anybody "Mom,....Mom,....Mom where are you" he called out hoping to get a response but he heard nothing. Then amidst all the smoke he saw a small figure but he could not make out who it was. He felt like it was...."Zaya.....Zaya is that you? he asks but the person starts walking away.....almost certain that the person was Zaya,..... "Zaya wait don't go" he says as he runs after her in the smoky place. He kept running after her but he could not keep up because of the excess smoke so he eventually gave up. He just keeps on walking around calling out to his mother. Then he suddenly trips over something and lands face flat on the floor..... he is about to stand up when he notices that the smoke in front of him had cleared he looks ahead of him and sees people lying on the floor . He stands up to see who they are and to his horror, he sees the lifeless bodies of Zaya, Shinok, Taero and then lastly he saw her. She was lying there too in a pool of her own blood.

..

"MOM!!!!" he screams as he wakes up from the nightmare he was having. "Mom!!..mom" he keeps on shouting as he wakes up. Then a man walks into the room where he was laid "finally boy, you are awake" he says in a husky voice. "I thought you would never wake up, I was starting to worry that I brought home a dead body". Zairo is scared of this man but still musters up courage to say..... "old man please where is my mother, have you seen my mother" he asks with tears in his eyes.... "you are not very grateful, you did not even thank me for bringing you to my house . I don't know about your mother, all I know is that I went around looking for trash to sell like I always did, and found you lying on the floor in an alley unconscious. There was no one else with you, you were lying down there all alone" he said as he took a sip of gin from the bottle he was holding. Zairo burst into more tears as he now realized that he was truly alone . He cried and cried for hours until he finally fell asleep. The man who saved him had made a little something for him to eat but Zairo did not touch the food at all. Zairo woke up the next day to the sound of his mother's voice "Zai... Zai...., Zai wake up it's already morning" the voice said and then he stood up but she was not there, she was gone...., gone forever. He could not see her face anymore, all that was left for him now were the memories..... memories that would stay with him forever.

He looked around the room he was laid in, it was a complete mess. Never had he seen a room so messy before. His mother always kept their apartment nice and tidy, sometimes he would even join her in doing the cleaning of the house or washing of the dishes . He would stand on a stool just so his hands could reach the sink.

He got up from the bed and was heading for the door when a familiar smell hit him, that was when he realized that although he thought his mother's voice woke him up it was actually this smell...., it was the smell of FREID CHICKEN. " He stuck his head out the door first before he fully came out of the room. He looked around as if trying to figure out where the aroma was coming from , then he saw it on a table, in the middle of what looked like the sitting room. He smiled at himself as if he had just found a hidden treasure... "so all I had to do to get you out of that room was some fried chicken?.... apparently, even though Zairo had been in pain after the loss of everyone he knew, he had still been mumbling the words fried chicken in his sleep. So the man who did not have any money to get fried chicken. stole the hen of one of his neighbors and used it to prepare the fried chicken that had woken Zairo up. "Are you just going to stand there, or will you sit down and eat?.. getting that chicken was not very easy just so you know" he said pointing to the chicken. "my mom told me not to collect things from strangers" Zairo said looking at the chicken. " well I don't think you have a choice now, do you?.. the man says.

Zairo seems to ponder on what the old man said and ends up concluding that he is actually right . He did not have a choice, so he went over to the table and picked a drumstick (the chickens lap). As he ate the chicken he scanned the old man from head to toe, he wasn't actually too old he was about forty or perhaps forty five he just looked homeless and unkept which made him seem old. In a second he had eaten almost every piece of chicken in the bowl. "thank you old man" he says as he had eaten enough. " hey boy stop calling me old man am just 41 years old not 60" the old man said. " so what should I call you instead" he asked " my name is Sam,... so call me sam" the old man said. "alright old man sam" zairo replied, which made the man frustrated . He just could not reason with this kid..." so what is your name?..... "Zairo... my name is Zairo" he replied .

"So Zairo are you going to tell me what happened or not? he said.... for a split second, Zairo had forgotten about his problems but as the old man asked the question tears came pouring down his cheek uncontrollably. He then told the man every single detail he could remember on how he and his mother had gone to visit her friend and how he met his own chicken partner and then how they were all killed by Arguse. After narrating the whole incident to the old man, he was still crying . The old man who was going to help the child till he was better and then send him back to wherever he came from, now realized the poor child was alone in the world. He felt pity for the boy " if you like you can stay with me , I don't have much to give to you but we will figure it out somehow". he said... Zairo even though he was still a little boy knew how to be grateful. He hugged the old man "thank you old man,.. thank you so much. I promise you will not regret this , I will be very good , I will clean the house and do whatever you want me to" he says , the old man laughs.

Zairo now lived with the old man and like he said he was a good boy, he said he would clean the house but instead he managed to make old man do ninety nine percent of the cleaning while he just stayed there as the supervisor. They were getting along very well also, they would wake up in the morning and go out to pick recyclables that they would sell together. this was how they were able to afford food to eat. Since they could not be stealing chicken from their neighbors all the time, and could not afford chicken everyday, they picked a special day in the week to have chicken, they named it CHICKEN SATURDAY.

Zairo still thought about his mother and every other person that had died that day most times ,like when he would do the dishes, or when he would tie his shoelace or even on chicken Saturdays , he would remember how his mom would tell him he could not live on only chicken or how he and Zaya had devoured the fried chicken together that day. Everything was going fine in his life before Arguse showed up. He was not going to forgive the man that took everything away from him .

..