Story The Child under the brige

On an early spring morning - a misty morning, when the arising daylight becomes mixed up with the​

halos of street lamps - a man was walking along a canal. The man did not look like an old person, but rather worn out due to his life, due to having slept outside and having drunk too much wine. This man (let's admit that he was called Ali) was an homeless person and sort of unemployed. When people were used to fixing their gaze on him, they said: "Well look here, the Dirty Man." This was how people from South call rag-and-bon men who, bins by bins, gather what might be sold: cardboards, old clothes, glass pots, even radio batteries that we can load back by leaving them to the sun.

In order to gather all of this, he had a buggy which belonged to the formerly past, with a pleasant black​

greatcoat and spoke wheels, whose one of them was lightly buckled. For bulky objects, he had a handcart.

Ali was heading for the bridge. This was the place where he lived, and where he kept all the treasures​

that he has picked during the night.

This morning, Ali was tired. He was thinking of the winy gulp that he will be drinking before going to his​

cardboard bed, under his military blanket that helps him shelter from the cold like a tent. He was also thinking of the gray cat which must be sleeping under the cover, in a ring and purring. Ali did love his cat. He called him Cinderella, due to its color.

When Ali was getting nearer to the tent, he saw something unexpected: instead of the chat, there was a​

gaping box. Ali straightaway understood that this box was not his. The Dirty Man stayed a long time looking at it, full of mistrust. Who put this box here, on his bed?

Ali felt his wrath that was grasping him. Suddenly he remembered that he used to be a soldier, in his​

youth, and that he was charging in the middle of the noises from the bullets. This was a long time ago, but he had a memory of the heartbeats, of his blood's warm in his cheeks.

He was coming closer to this box, unwavering in his determination to throw it far from the wharfs, but​

he heard something. Something incredible, impossible. A voice was being heard, in the box, a childly voice, a newborn voice. This was so much unexpected that Ali stayed on the spot, and looked around him, in order to notice where the voice was coming from. But everything was such a wasteland under the bridge, there was only the cold water from the canal, and the road above.

The voice kept leaving the box, but this time clear, with a glimmer of restlessness. It was calling by​

means of little and repetitive screams, and since Ali was late wondering if wether or not it was a good idea to check the box, the voice started crying. In the meantime, Ali saw the box wriggle, shake because of the whacks given from inside.
"Cats!", Ali said loudly. But he knew that little and forgotten cats on the brink of a canal do not have such a voice.

He came closer and closer, moved aside the rims of the box with his cracked and blacken hands, and​

owing to indefinite measures he brought a baby out, a little girl, not taller than a doll, so little that Ali had to clench his hands not to make her skid, so light that he had the impression of holding leafknob."This is her, she is the child under the bridge" he thought.

Throughout his life, Ali has never seen such a beautiful thing, such a tender and light thing, and this​

thing was this little girl, this living doll. He hold her in his arms, without daring to approach his face with a disheveled beard. The cold air that rushed into the bridge sent papers to batten and the box to jostle, and Ali suddenly realized that the baby was naked, and that his skin was blushing because of the cold, stood on end with thousands of little balls due to the goose bumps.


Thanks,
Algelier.