Carl hadn't been home for days. The house was a hotbed of emotions as his mother wailed, day and night. The dogs in the slum too, howled along pitifully. There was a lot of screaming, blaming and questions that nobody could answer.
The boy was missing.
***
The two loafing police officers paid no heed to the grieving, distraught father-son duo. The head detective, sitting behind his desk, tossed his paper ball straight into the wastepaper basket. "Bullesye," he announced triumphantly with a smug grin. Then, turning to Felix's father, he sighed uninterestedly.
"Like I said, we can't help you. We're busy." Another crushed paper ball fell into the pile growing in the basket.
"Yeah," the other detective piped up. "Have you considered the possibility that your son might have just… run away?" He traced two fingers on the desk to mimic running.
"My son would never do that!"
Felix could not bear to see his father in such distress. It was not just anger dealing with impertinence from the authorities; it was humiliating.
"We can't just go after every person who's supposedly missing. Usually they come back, most of the time, when they realise that they've made a mistake. Problem solves itself," the head detective said casually.
"It's been three days! My child needs his bed, food and family to survive. Finding missing people is your job… I don't understand why I have to beg you," Felix's father slammed his open palms onto the detective's table. The stack of loose documents laying face-up on the table shook and collapsed into a messy pile. The head detective's toss throw skewed left and missed the wastepaper basket.
"Now you're going to teach us about what we're supposed to do?" The head detective was not pleased. "Do you see the audacity of this guy?" he turned to his subordinate, puffing out his chest. It had been a show of aggression, and he needed to show him who the boss was.
"Yeah, bro. Big mistake he's making right there," his staffer responded coolly.
"But you know what? He's just lost a child," the head detective softened. "We should help him out. After all, it's our job. It's how we earn our salary." He didn't even have to wink at his staffer. They knew the drill by now.
"Our resources are limited. So what are we going to do about it?" his subordinate played along in a mocking tone.
"I have an idea," the head detective said slowly and sarcastically. "Why don't you help us gather resources so that we can help you find your son? It's a win-win situation, don't you agree?"
Felix's father caught on immediately. His expectations had fallen so low, that bribery was no longer beneath him.
"I'll see what I can do."
Felix was mute. His brother, vanished without a trace, would become all but a figment in his family's memories. Each minute they stood around waiting for someone in power to take charge, was time wasted. This government did not protect those who did not protect themselves. Such was the reality of adulthood, and Felix had grown up.
***
"Where is my boy? Where is he? Why haven't you found him?"
"Everyone we know is looking for him. We will find him," the boys' father assured.
Felix, Carl's younger brother, sat on the floor of the one bedroom apartment silently processing everything. He didn't know whether to cry along with the others. Felix held hope against hope. Surely this was one of Carl's famous practical jokes, and he would pop out at any moment and yell "Gotcha!" Or maybe he had simply left the hell-hole that was Vinlan Corp, and sailed away to other countries like he had always said he would. When that news came, Felix wanted to be the first one to exclaim, "I told you so!"
But reality was not as kind.
"Why haven't the authorities found him yet?"
Felix's father lowered his voice. "You know how they are. They're asking for money to take up the case. Their excuse is that slum kids just run away." This was typical behaviour from Vinlan Corp authorities, asking for grease on the palms of the old corrupt bureaucrat. This was an informal settlement, where the people living here had little to no status. They were poor, and in Vinland Corp that meant that they had no rights.
"Have you tried asking the rich folks that Carl worked for? Maybe they can help. He did everything for them. Someone will help. They must! I just want him back. Please… bring him back to me," his mother cried through her tears. Carl was only fourteen. Her boy was barely turning into a man, and now he was gone.
"I've been trying! I just don't have the money and those fat fucks aren't going to help. I could just see it on their faces. They didn't even let me inside the gate." His father slammed his hands against the wall, dejected and broken. "I don't know what to do anymore." Tears flowed freely.
Felix had heard everything. He uncrossed his legs and lay down on the bare mattress. He could not bring himself to cry, even though he knew without a doubt that Carl was never returning.
***
The mansion belonging to Carl's employer, a government official, was stately and intimidating. Surrounded on all sides by high fences and manicured greenery, it reeked of a level of luxury that Felix could only have imagined. Felix and his father camped out in front of the huge ornate gate, having bribed the security guard to look the other way to allow them to even be part of the premises. The security guard had been friendly with Carl and sympathetic enough, but still only accepted money to put his job on the line, as he claimed.
Finally, there was a flash of headlights from behind the gate. With a creak, the doors began to swing open and a shiny black limousine began to inch through.
Felix's father leapt forward, throwing himself on the hard gravel and pleading with tears in his eyes.
Felix could not bear to see his own father, begging for mercy and help from the detested rich. It was disgusting to see how low they had to stoop. "Please, Dad... Get up..."
The limousine screeched to a halt. Watching the headlights trained on his father's forlorn body in a foetal position on the ground, Felix felt his body cringe involuntarily with revulsion.
"Hey, you! Do you want to be killed?" the driver yelled from the rolled-down window. "Move out of the way!"
A smooth, mellow voice came from the backseat of the car. "It's all right. Ask him to come to my window."
The driver waved Felix's father to the blacked-out windows on the left. The window cautiously opened a tiny slit. Inside the car was a middle-aged official.
"How can I help you?" he asked.
Felix's father, blubbering and sobbing, tried to explain. "My son worked at your house as a gardener. He has been missing for a week. Please, can you try to help with your networks… we might be able to find him."
Felix stood awkwardly a few steps away, frozen at the contrast in status, power, money and influence between the official and his father. The rich sat in their big cars, while his father's rough knees scraped against the cold hard gravel.
The official spoke kindly. "I'm sorry to hear that. What was his name?"
Felix's father brightened up. Was that a ray of hope? Perhaps he could help. "His name is Carl, and he was only fourteen. He always talked about you. Please help us, the police authorities are not interested in the case…"
The official's brows furrowed. "I haven't heard this name before. Are you sure he worked for me?"
The driver got impatient and revved the idling engine. "Do you know how many people work for him?" he scoffed. "He doesn't have the time, so you should go."
The official nodded at his driver and rolled up his window without another word. The conversation was over.
The crestfallen look on his father's face would come to haunt Felix forever. "Please, sir! Please help my son!" he tried one last time, banging futilely on the glass of the limousine as its wheels picked up speed.
Soon, the car was out of sight and Felix and his father were two figures alone in the darkness.
His father turned to Felix, annoyed. "You should've been on the ground with me," he pointed out, "Don't you want your brother back?"
Felix felt shame washing over him, his eyes stinging.
***
The ocean was angry. The waves crashed onto the shore erratically as the wind howled. High above, the moon was full and cold, shrouded in a wisp of clouds.
Felix sat on the cliff. It was the same one that he had taken off on a hang glider with his brother when they were children. Except now, he was a teenager with a pompadour, and he was full of angst.
"You left me!"
He flung another jagged rock into the ocean.
"How dare you!"
He threw himself down onto the ground. It had been four years since Carl disappeared.
"We were supposed to do this together!" He sobbed.
"We were supposed to be rich. We were supposed to get all the respect, and meet all the ladies…" Felix lifted his head to the sky.
The storm had arrived. Raindrops pelted down around him. Tap tap.
"I can't do this without you. Please… come back."
'Tap tap tap.'
"I'll work extra hard, I swear. Brother… just come back. You promised that we would sail away to other countries together..."
Puddles were forming around his feet.
"You lied to me, but if you come back now... I'll forgive you."
Felix lifted his head, tears mixing with the sadness of the sky.
"I don't want to be alone."