He was standing in the street.

With sunlight escaping his raised fingers and touching his face , wind blowing gently through the dryness of air and children's raspy cries deafening his ears.

Zia was all but content. He had his 13th birthday today but who cared to remember that?

He looked at his brown shirt which once used to be white and then his gaze turned to his black pants scarred with white stains and wrinkles and at last he looked at his bare feet which were almost the same colour as the ground beneath him.

"Filthy."

That's what people thought of him. A stray boy who could do nothing except standing in the street and staring at the crowd passing by. Zia sighed.

ah.....

"A sigh means a recap."

that's what his mother told him when she sighed. He still remembered the time when she would brush his hair and lay his head on her lap while humming him a song,

"All the sweet memories,

cool like a breeze,

in a hot summer day,

swayed my lonesome trees,

I looked at the sky,

and dropped at my knees."

where did you learn this song, mama?

" I wrote it for you. "

Zia sighed once again. He closed his eyes.

when he opened them, the sun was warming his eyelids. The sky was open wide.

Zia wandered in the streets till the sun had said goodbye. The streets of Quettaw...

He hated them. he hated their familiar stench. he despised the wooden doors. he hated every single block of brick that made these streets because everything he saw reminded him of his mama.

these streets had saw what had happened. they knew everything.

He surrendered at last.

his legs wobbled and he fell on the solid road. His heart went silent for a second. everything was still.

he pulled a brick from the side if the road and layed his head on it. A tear escaped his eyes.

"mama, it hurts."