A boy with too much family stress

The first thing Julian noticed about the city was all the rushing around. Everyone was in such a hurry that he thought that there must be something special happening that day, which no one wanted to miss. Curious as to what it was, Julian started following a man who looked like he was hurrying to see whatever it was that was happening. However, after several hours following him, the man arrived at a small flat and went inside. He had done or seen nothing of interest that whole day.

That night Julian slept in a park. The park was strewn with bits of paper and plastic. As the bins were completely empty, Julian thought how cool it was that the city had seemingly invented plants with petals made of paper and plastic. He only believed this until the following morning, when a man came by and dropped his chocolate wrapper.

Julian carried on walking through the city streets, trying to understand what was going on, when he arrived at a group of big warehouses, which many people were entering. "This must be the best museum in the world," he thought, on entering, and seeing all the useless-looking things they had inside. But then he saw that people were picking these things up, paying for them, and taking them away.