Object

And he was two years old when he was left with his grandparents. The elders were loose and harsh, they had no friends in the village. They accepted him as a third pet, besides the hounds who already cared for them and their suroundings. Whenever he was crying, they left him in a corner of the room with no food and forgot about him. He was only fed at certain hours, two times a day. They fed him with the soup that remained from boiling some pork bones and with some bread crumbs. The child gradually learned, before learning how to speak, that he was an object of the house, not a resident. He found comfort on the cold floor near the dogs, which warmed him when the screams were not heard.

It's been a couple of years now, about ten, and the boy speaks only with the animals in the yard, while his grandparents stopped feeding him anymore. He wore, beside his patched trousers and dirty blouse, a cruel grin. Nothing frightens him. He used to jump from the walnut tree directly on his back and laugh. He grew up without the feeling of pain and his fear had faded since his first beatings. He liked to look for sharp stones to scratch his shin, hoping to hurt him. He had come to see his grandfather, when he hit a stumble that had fallen from the cart, that he had begun to scream and curse. He hoped to feel something, but there wasn't anything to feel. Nothing besides the hot blood gushing to the ankles. He knew he was different. He knew he did not belong. He knew it was a simple object of the world that walked down the hill in mud and that no one is like him. One day he ran away.

He is 17 years old now, dressed better and living in the city. He always wears a hoodie to cover his face and has sharp stones in his right pants pocket. When he is not sleeping in the shelter for the homeless he is hiding through side ways and dark avenues. He felt the need to talk. He missed the two old hounds who were listening to him back then. No one had ever heard him speak since. He decides to open up to the girl who always brought him biscuits when she heard him crying from starvation. One night he stopped in front of her and while exhailing, nothing more than a snort came out. He did not know how to choose his words. He had not spoken to a person before. The girl smiled, left half the biscuits, and left. He did not know what was going on. He began to shake his head to the left and right in a fierce anger, fled to the corner of the room, pulled out one rock from his pants and began scribbling his shin. He laughed uncontrollably. The girl, Beatrice, saw him. She had brought him tea. "What's wrong with you, what are you doing? Stop! ", she screamed as her left hand caught the boys cheek. He woke up from his fit and blocked his gaze on her. He kept the stone tightly in his palm and stopped moving it. He did not know what to say. He did not know how to speak, only the animals had heard him before. He continued to look at her from under his nose, with a crazy mans smile, saying "What?". Beatrice, a girl with gentle hazle eyes, with blonde hair and pale skin dropped the can and ran away. She went directly to the shelters guard, and without saying anything, pointed to the mens dorm. The guard - a lecherous bum - stood up and, in a repellent tone, said, "What do you want? What the hell do you want from me?" The girl could not say anything, and ran upstairs to her room. Bart, now curious about what happened, went to see what was going on. And there was nothing out of the ordinary in the room. Many of the men were sleeping, others were missing - either at work or begging on the streets -but not a trace from the boy. Seeing that everything seemed to be in place, he returned to his room and set himself to watch, like every other night, dirty movies. The morning came. And as always, the guard had to wake the people up and make sure they made their bed. The kid was not there. There were screams coming from upstairs. One of the women descended in terror and shouted, "Beatrice!" The girl layed bare in a pool of blood with two sharp stones in her throat. Her blonde hair was gone. She was shaved.

Now he is about 36, wears a suit and he is not hiding his face anymore. He stopped showing his devilish grin and got better at handling his fits. But he is wearing a cold face with no sign of wrinkles or any grimace. His face has no tell. Now he walks freely and has no one to keep tabs on him. And in his right pocket, as always, he had a sharp stone.