Weekly Writing Challenge: Collecting Detail |Hunger

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My children managed to eat a good meal today and got their tummies full after a month or two. I have got three sons and two daughters. We along with my wife live in a small hut of 1 room. There is no separate space for a kitchen or anything else. My wife has made a corner of this room a kitchen. Our kitchen consists of a single brown stove whose every inch is rusted now. This stove is not in our use from quite a month or so because we hardly get anything to eat daily. I look at my children sleeping on the ground at night in torn old filthy clothes with empty bellies daily and my dreams for their future break into tiny little pieces like shards of glass and hurt my soul leaving it wounded. I wake up every morning with a new energy and hope and till night, this energy eats me up. I may be a bad father and a bad husband but I love my family and I die once everyday feeling hopeless for them.

However today is my day. I am watching my children having a good meal. The smiles on their faces have turned my guilt into a peaceful happiness. I close my eyes and suddenly a flashback took me to the place where it all started today….

I was walking on the road in search of some work like usual. Everybody was in a hurry to perform their duties. People with cell phones attached to their ears, people with briefcases ,  people wearing nice suits and people wearing filthy torn clothes like me. Cars;big and small were occupying the road as if they own it. Small children with blue, red and pink school bags , holding each other’s hands , smiling and giggling, just passed by in a line. A thin middle aged school teacher wearing glasses was teaching them how to cross a road. A cool breeze was blowing and giving me shivers. The sky feels so blue and relaxed…. silent like the silence after a big storm passes. When suddenly the silence was torn apart by a loud horn followed by a blast. I stopped and looked backward. A gold colored shining new car just got hit by a huge gigantic black truck and caught fire. I rushed towards the place where the accident had occurred and all of a sudden a huge crowd was gathered around the place. Truck driver was fine but car was all bashed and driver was wounded badly. I pulled him out of the car with the help of some people. His head was bleeding badly and tiny drops of blood started gathering around his head on the road. He had wounds all over his body. His face which may be fresh before a few seconds felt all pale and weak now.He was alive but unconscious. He was wearing a black suit which seemed to be very expensive. A gold watch could be seen on his wrist and an expensive mobile phone was hanging out from his pocket. People were calling the emergency now.

Sitting there suddenly my mind got all blurred with the faces of my children. I had always wished a wonderful life for them like this man was having and they are striving to live and for food everyday in spite of enjoying the luxuries. My heart was filled with anger and hate for myself and at once a thought triggered my mind. I looked at his watch and cell phone and thought about my children and their innocent faces. Hunger blocks your mind and you forget who you are. I was forgetting myself too.

After a few minutes an ambulance came. People dragged that man and put him in the ambulance. A black suit was all that was left on his body. I moved towards my home with a full pocket and a blocked mind and heart……where my children were hungry and waiting for me.

This story is written in response to Weekly Writing Challenge: Collecting Detail.