IDOLIZING CHAOS

Bright eyed kid

    A bright eyed 5 year old boy walked in a somewhat creeping manner towards an all provisions stall that sold sweets and cookies, amongst others. Time and again he looked back to get any bit of encouragement from his only other companion, his 8 year old sister. She had decide to stay further back in the cross roads and gave him her thumbs up in encouragement any time he looked back. Seeing that, the bright eyed kid seemed to have a surge of confidence and stepped towards the stall manager, who also acted as the sells person.

             The stall was a one room 10 x 8 cubic meter storage filled all up with shelves for packaging and arranging the different kinds of items. Although this kind of stall wasn’t much in other places, here it was the epitome of classiness. In front of the one roomed stall, a furniture like a display stand was mounted and different sweets, chewing gums and cookies were displayed there to catch the attention of kids who wouldn’t know how hard it was for their parents to make a living and would always get attracted to the stall to spend their parent’s hard earned money.   

“Ehm, Hello excuse me sir, I was sent to buy sanitary pads” he said with a straight face after doing this multiple times  he had mastered all the facial tactics needed.

“Huh…. Okay kid, your mum sent you? Did she also tell you how much and give you the money… it is 900 cents for the pack.”

“Yes… I know” He swallowed a lump of saliva and answered.

         Of course he would not have that amount of money with him, and neither would his mother send him for something that personal. The reason he said he wanted to buy that specific item was simply because that was what his sister told him to do.

       ‘she said that stall owners and managers when arranging their goods, would either because of shame or because they don’t really put those sorts of things as important in their minds- always push the items far back in the shelves, especially if they are male sellers or young youths. So if he asked for it, the sellers would have to go inside to get it, and that’s when he was going to do as she had planned.    

           True to his sister’s word, the salesman immediately excused himself and hurried inside to get it. Immediately he was out of the view, the bright eyed kid suddenly looked around to ascertain that there wasn’t anyone looking down here, and quickly took handfuls of sweets and cookies of different kinds and stuff them into the special pockets of the underwear he wore until they were all filled up. And when the seller came back he confusedly looked at the stuff and proclaimed that he wasn’t sure that that was the exact brand he was sent to buy and said he would go on to ask her, then come back to get it.

                A soft silent sigh suddenly escaped the sellers lips, Aeries was suddenly brought into his memories as Scorch and as if he was visiting his past, all the details of what happened before had been vividly played, even the sides he himself couldn’t remember, he had taken the body of the sales man without he himself doing anything, and although he was in the body, he could only act like a small recording chip and only view the things happening, he could not control any part of the sales man body. So he just sighed and let what ever would happen happen, the same way it did to him 15 years ago.

             As soon as he sighed, an old woman immediately screamed out and pointed accusing fingers on the bright eyed 5 year old boy, she had been standing not so far off, seemingly engrossed in checking out cutleries and kitchen wares that she had been interested in buying when she had by chance looked and saw the kid stuffing the sweets into his pants.

                Immediately  Aeries  , who was in the sellers body was enraged and slapped the kid hard on his cheeks, causing a huge palm print to form on the tearful kid’s face. Not even letting the kid off with that,  Aeries  - no matter how he tried to stop or control his movements- followed the flow and ordered the kid to strip stark naked, his justified reason was to remove all the sweets from the kid’s body, lest he still trickily hide some. By now people had already gathered to watch a good show, the crying child that was being stripped and flogged mercilessly for “The sins of being lured by the devil to eat the forbidden fruit” until he had marks all over his body. The former Bright eyed kid all this while, had been looking for the only person he knew that could save him to hid behind for protection.

    He called out several times with a tearful voice to his sister, but she had suddenly hidden in the group of onlookers, afraid to also be caught. And even rained down curses on him so as to fit into the crowd and not stick out like a sore thumb, even going as far as calling him ‘the devil’s incarnate’ while going with the flow.

                It was until he had been jarred at for almost an hour naked, did his mother hurried out of a taxi and ran to him. He had immediately ran towards his mother with tear stained face and hugged her legs without letting go.

    “This is the kind of child you have been training Eh! Madam, if this righteous old woman had not caught your son in the act, and my boss finds out….. I and my whole family would have starved to death, all for the boy in your legs. And you think I’ll let it go? As the saying goes ‘there can be 99 days for the thief but in all of that the last 1 day would always belong to the owner’…. Am sure he had been stealing all this while eh, and you kept quiet about it”