The boy
The sun was high in the sky, showing the noon of what seemed to be an exceptionally hot day, unusual even for this part of the world, where hot summers were very common. Both streets of the village were empty and remaining few people that were outside, tried to stay in the shadows, moving as little as possible. The village was asleep, an only option in order to survive during hot summers of the desert. What work needed to be done, was usually taken care of in the morning, or in the evening. The Market’s work schedule was pretty much the same- open before sun was in the zenith, closed until it was near the sunset.
That is why the boy, who was the only one still working outside, appeared as an incarnation of the solitude itself. The heat and the smell from manure, that would make the working conditions unbearable for anyone else, seemed not to bother the boy in the slightest, even though he was working directly under the sun. He moved methodically without slowing down, or going faster. He did not stop, even for a short while to rest, or simply to catch a breath. He just continued shovelling with an utterly emotionless face.
It has been five years since the brutal death of Atlai’s parents and sisters. Nothing has changed since that day. He still remained an impassive boy who talked only when absolutely had to; limiting his responses to a few words that usually involved getting a job. And since Atlai was up to any task for practically nothing, his lack of communication skills didn’t get in a way of finding work. Unfortunately, it wasn’t always like this. There was a time when he had to beg for food. It was a hard time, as his unresponsiveness did not help him in getting the necessary sympathy from people. And more often than not, he was starving.
The first years he spent alone were the toughest and how he survived those years, without proper amount of food, living on the street through cold and heat, was a mystery. Mostly, people were avoiding him, seeing that there was something wrong with the boy. It had nothing to do with his mental state. The villagers have seen crazy people before, quiet as well as aggressive ones. But the boy was different; it was his eyes, more than anything else. They were empty, detached, hollow. And that was what scared people, because even the crazy ones had some emotions, something that made their eyes alive. The boy on the other hand, looked as if he was a walking dead.
Of course, there were people who were stupid enough not to notice this strangeness about him, who only saw an opportunity to take an advantage of a small boy, who only saw an easy target. But even those soon were loosing their interest in Atlai. And no matter how much stronger or how many there were, it always ended up in the same way: with them leaving confused and scared. A number of times it was some perverted men who tried to make Atlai do things, then it was some drunks who thought it would be hilarious to see a boy crawling on his knees, barking. And one time it was a band of street bullies who were protecting their territory. None of them bothered him afterwards and it was not because he has always been able to fight them off, in fact sometimes he had to take quite a beating. It was because of the way Atlai was fighting, emotionless, without any sound. No matter how badly he was hurt, he never made any noise. Not a sound of pain, or anger, or fright. He was just fighting, until the last drop of his strength, crawling if he had to. It was scary in the way that made any person, no matter how thick he was, to retreat. The fact that it took a lot to take him down didn’t help either (he was unusually strong for a ten year old).
But it was all in the past now. People got used to him and since his strength tripled during the last five years, even the most fearsome criminals weren’t crazy enough to touch him. As for the starving days, they were behind as well. Atlai was strong enough now to do the job that took five grown men to finish. And no matter how hard, or dirty that job was Atlai’s price was just a meal.
So, at fifteen, Atlai was a lean boy, with a lot of scars, slightly underweight, not because he was starving, but because he was working off any fat before it had a chance to store itself on his body. In any other circumstances he would be a normal boy. Someone who has seen his fare share of bad things perhaps, but a boy nonetheless, with his own ambitions and interests. Unfortunately, that was not the case for Atlai. He was different. He did not look younger or older than his years because he had nothing written on his face and the scars were the only signs that suggested something about his past experience. In any other way, his face was blank.
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Farid couldn’t sleep. After tossing and turning in his bed for about half an hour, he finally decided to get up. Passing his daughters’ rooms he stopped to check upon them. Since his wife's death he was overcautious and because it’s been a little over a year, he has only now started to come around of being a single parent. Life wasn’t easy for the three of them. They moved a lot for the past twelve months. They had to leave their home in the first place because it was too painful, too many memories about the life they have lost. And from that day on, they haven’t stopped moving, changing village after village, city after city, not feeling at home anywhere. That was until they came to this place. And although it was not so different from many villages they have passed before, for some reason they liked it here and so they stayed. Farid had some savings, enough to buy a house and a mill that stood closer to the outskirt of the market centre, not far from the stables. The mill was in a good working condition and Farid figured, it would provide a good life for his daughters.
He went to the window to look outside and straight away saw Atlai shovelling manure into a cart, doing the job, Jamal was complaining, he couldn’t hire anyone to do. And since he didn’t want to do it either, especially in that kind of weather, he found someone who was agreeable enough even for such dirty, hard work. But that was not what was pissing him off; it was the fact that Jamal was abusing boy’s obvious mental condition.
Farid frowned. He has been living in the village for a couple of months now, but even after a week he noticed that kid was mistreated. Being a new resident, Farid felt that it was impolite to start pocking his nose into matters that did not concern him. So he kept his thoughts to himself. Meanwhile, he asked around about the boy, but nobody could tell him much. Only that he came out of the desert five years ago, on his feet, without food or drink. He was pretty much the same when he came into the village, as he was now; the only difference was he didn’t talk at all. A few men gathered and went to the desert to see what happened, to find with whom the boy was travelling. But they’ve returned after half a day with nothing and since there was no way the boy could have walked that distance without water, his arrival, like everything else about him, remained a mystery.
Farid could see right away, that there was something deeply disturbing about the boy. He never saw anyone so detached from his emotions and you didn’t have to be a genius to realize, that something horrible has happened to him. What, of course, was impossible to tell, but it was not important. The important thing was that instead of trying to help the boy to get better, most of the people in the village didn’t care or worse, took advantage of him. Although, in their defence Farid had to admit, that kid’s look was frightening. He was not insane, he was something else, or better to say he was somewhere else. Nonetheless, he was a child and he deserved to have a normal life. If God forbid something should happen to Farid himself, he would feel hell of the lot better if he knew that his daughters would be cared for. And that’s what was bothering him, the fact that people of the village so quickly gave up on the boy, just because he was strange. Yes, that’s what was bothersome. What made him angry, was seeing that some bastards like this Jamal, would actually use boy’s condition for their benefit. It sickened him.
Farid was looking at Atlai, who worked under unbearably hot weather, doing the job no one else wanted to do and thought that the most the boy would get would be bread cheese and some water. He had seen that happen before. Many people in the village were honest enough to pay the boy a proper meal for a proper job, without underpaying him greatly. But there were some who didn’t and Jamal was one of them. Farid knew for a fact that he has done it once before. He even heard him bragging about it to his friends, talking about how great it was, that the village had its own local idiot, who was ready to do anything for a peace of bread. He was laughing, while telling that he made the boy do the job that would have cost him ten copper coins to hire three men to finish. Whereas he got away with just giving this idiot kid some of his leftovers. Farid laid awake all night feeling sick with guilt for not saying anything that day.
He hardly spoke to Jamal after that, but for the past month he got to know him well enough to understand: that kind of the men hold grudges. And since he planed to stay in this village for good, he thought it would be unwise to make an enemy with your neighbour. That’s how he felt until this afternoon and he finally had enough ‘That about does it’, he thought walking out into the outside heat. He walked straight to the boy