It was close to midnight and Eku was hungry. The last time he ate was around noon when he managed to distract a shopkeeper and quickly put a few apples away into his bag. He was able to take around five of them, but they didn't really fill him up nor did they last him that long, and since it was Sunday and all the shops closed early, he had no way of getting any more food until the next morning. He lay on top of a roof of an abandoned factory, looking up into the sky trying to spot a shooting star. He was hungry, but he didn't seem to dwell on it. He tried to look at the positives; the night was warm which meant he wouldn't freeze to death. After lying there for around two hours without seeing a shooting star, he gave up. He got up and decided to take out his sleeping bag, as he was going to spend the night there. He had no choice but to sleep there. He had nowhere else to go.
After telling his parents that he got expelled from school for cutting classes, they threw him out. He tried to explain to them that most of his classes were simply too boring to attend, but they didn't listen. When he was thrown out of his house, his aunt took him in. She lived in a small apartment in Yuben, a town around ten kilometers away from his hometown, with only one room, but somehow she managed to find a spare mattress for him to sleep on. After hearing about what her brother and his wife did, she felt like the least she could do for him was give him a place to stay. She was really nice to Eku and she truly understood his difficult situation. Unfortunately, she couldn't guest him for longer than a month as her contract was running out and she herself had to find a new place to stay. No longer able to help him, she gave him the little money she had and wished him luck.
With a bit of cash in his pocket, Eku knew that he would be able to survive for at least a month. Food was cheap in Yuben and water was even cheaper. That's all he really needed. He was able to live a very simple life in the streets of Yuben for over thirty-five days until he first started realizing that he was running out of money. When he spent the last euro he had to his name, he thought he was going to starve and die. He never expected to be in such a situation where he wouldn't have enough money to eat the next day. He had always lived a rich life with his parents and never experienced any poverty.
***
It was Monday, the beginning of a new week. While chewing on his last piece of food, Eku felt fear, probably for the first time in the past few weeks. He had no more money and no more food. He had no idea what the next day was going to bring. When he was done eating, he fell asleep on a bench in a park. When he woke up the next morning it was Tuesday. He decided to go to the town square, hoping to find someone who could spare him some money or even give him some food. When he arrived at the square he was shocked to see the amount of people there. Stepping into the square, he was speechless. He had never seen anything just like it. There were about ten rows of stands with freshly squeezed juices and about twenty rows of stands serving breakfast. The air was filled with the smell of freshly squeezed orange juice and strawberry jam. Wishing he could taste some of the freshly squeezed juice, Eku walked past all of the stands observing the shopkeepers as they poured the orange juice into cups and handed them to people. His mouth watered. He then walked over to the stands with fruit and watched a man cut a mango into something which resembled a palm tree. While making eye contact with the mango cutter, he looked away for a split second and looked towards his shoe as he thought is was untied. He knelt down to tie it, and then he saw something. It was a small black wallet lying on the ground right next to the fruit stand. Without hesitation he shoved it in his pocket and stood up. He then started running towards the exit of the square, shoving people out of his way.
When he reached a small street which connected the main street to another big street parallel to it, he took out the wallet out of his pocket. His heart was beating fast. He brought the wallet up to his ear and shook it.
'Aha! Money!' he screamed joyously. He opened the wallet and looked for notes but found none. He then checked the side pocket and inside he found a bunch of lose change. He fell to the floor, threw all of the money out on the ground and started counting it. When he was done counting the coins he had counted four euro and twenty-three cents. Knowing that a two litre bottle of water only cost fifty cents and that a bag of eight bananas cost eighty cents, he knew that that much could last him for a good four to five days. He quickly packed up all his money and headed back to the town square.
When he arrived there for the second time that morning, he went back to the fruit stand where he found the wallet and bought eight bananas and water. He now only had two euro and ninety-six cents left. Really wanting to buy a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, which was only fifty cents but knowing he really had to save his money, he decided to leave the town square before something provoked him into buying it. He left the square and headed for the park. He ate two bananas while walking down the main street. When he turned into a small street which would take him straight to the park, he looked up into the sky as he felt a few drops of rain on his hand, and saw that the whole sky was cloudy. He didn't realize how bad the weather was until now as before his main focus was to get food. Knowing that the rain was only going to get worse, and because he really didn't want to get soaked as he didn't have much clothes he could change into, apart from an old t-shirt and shorts, he decided to look for shelter. He didn't have a raincoat or anything that he could throw over himself in his backpack either. When his parents told him he had to leave the house he only packed his backpack with the things he thought he will need. The first thing he took was his sleeping bag which took up most of the space in the bag. He then grabbed a big water bottle, and to fill the remaining space, he took a spare t-shirt and shorts. He really didn't have much room to fit anything else. This meant that he was going to have to survive with very little belongings. He wasn't used to this very minimalistic way of life, but after living that way for the past month in the streets of Yuben he was starting to enjoy it. He loved the idea of carrying everything he owned in a small backpack on his back. To him it was very freeing.
He turned back and started walking rapidly in the direction of the town square. He remembered that there was a church there which he hoped he could go into to hide from the rain. When he entered the town square for the third time that morning, the place was almost empty. All the people who were there before fled, when it started raining. There were only a couple of people left. The rain was now getting much stronger and he could feel his clothes getting heavier from all the water. He spotted the church and started heading for it. He didn't run as he was scared he would fall and injure himself. It took him about two minutes to reach the church. When he did, he stormed inside through the main doors and took off his wet jumper and backpack. The church was empty. Not one person was there. Perhaps this was because it was Tuesday morning and most people were either in school or out working. Leaving his wet jumper on a bench and his backpack on the ground, he went to have a look around the church. He rarely visited churches as he wasn't a Christian, so he saw this as a great opportunity to explore. The church was very big and could probably hold around a thousand people inside.
Eku walked up to the altar amazed. He had never seen anything just like it in his life. There was a long red carpet leading up three small steps which led up to the place where the priest stood during mass. There was a huge wooden table with a white cloth over it. It was filled with huge white candles and red flowers everywhere. On the wall, of course, hung a huge cross with a statue of Jesus on it. This cross fascinated Eku as he remembered reading stories about Jesus and his crucifixion in a book when he was younger. He wasn't too familiar with the details of the story but still found the piece of sculpture on the wall pretty astonishing.
He then headed towards what in his opinion looked like a room for smokers, in the top right corner of the church. This was what the Christians call a confession box, where they go and tell their sins to a priest asking for forgiveness from God. But Eku of course still only viewed it as a 'smokers' room.' Without hesitation, he walked in to have a look around. He was surprised to find out that it was not in fact a room for smokers. All that was inside was a cushion on the floor to rest your knees on and metal bars through which you could see a small room identical to the one Eku was standing in. This left him very puzzled. 'What is this place?' he thought to himself.
'Who is there?' A mysterious voice appeared out of nowhere, giving Eku a fright. He slowly turned around to see where the voice was coming from but saw no one. Then, the doors of the confession box sluggishly opened and a small figure stepped in.
'Hello? Anyone in here?', said a very low, calming, voice. Suddenly, Eku felt his knees getting weaker so he backed up against the wall and grabbed a hold of one of the cold metal bars.
'My-my name is Eku.', he murmured. The small figure now got closer and his face finally appeared out of the shadow. It was a strange face; his nose was oddly small in proportion to the rest of his facial features, his eyes were a strange color; a mild mixture of blue and green with a tint of brown, his lips were very dry, and behind them were his sunflower field yellow teeth. Even the complexion of his skin was quite eerie. He was paler than anyone else who lived in Yuben. It was like he didn't belong in the town. The only 'normal' thing about him was his hair. It was short and black, not too messy, but also not too neat. It was the hair most men in Yuben had.
Eku observed the face of this odd stranger and started to feel a bit uncomfortable as the awkward silence between them grew. For this whole time, the stranger never took his eyes off him once. This added to the mysteriousness of his strange character. As time seemed to stop, Eku slowly began to drift off. There was something about the man that was standing there that made him feel tired. It was as if he was sucking all the energy out of his body by simply gazing into his eyes. All of a sudden, his knees became weak and he fell to the floor.
