DARKNESS

I came out of the hell and looked the world, the world in which I live but still have no place to live.

There were dozens of cars parked in a row waiting for their owners to drive them. I never understood that if they don’t want to drive, then why they bought such expensive thing. Just to block the roads?

There were shops selling different food items and crowd just gathering over the shops like there’s no tomorrow. I sometime wonder that whether the shopkeepers give away the food items for free to them and charges a big amount to poor like me.

There were children playing on the road with a cycle tire, just rolling and rolling it with a stick. I never tried that stuff but I think that would be fun.

“Ashok!!!!!” My master yelled from inside the hell. I tried to gather all the happiness of outside world in a big long breath and then again I was in.

I opened the gate of the factory where I worked. On the gate it was written ‘No one below 18 years is allowed’, I always laughed on that as I was only 12. I ran towards the man with a fat belly, my master.

“Kaha gaya tha saale? Kaam tera baap karega?” He knew that my father passed away but still that line was his favorite line.

He took me inside the factory. When the door closed behind me, the orangey darkness covered me with the warmth of heat. My sweat begun to fall as if someone has just opened the doors of dam of sweat inside me. Heat and sweat was all around. Many like me were working there in the glass factory.

The happiness I took in with breath came out with the choking of lungs.

They say we, the children, are the future of this country. I want to say, ‘Your future is working in the darkness and is going to perish in that darkness soon.’