"Run, Jason, run!"
Little Jason, ten years old, kept saying these words to himself to make his little bare feet run as fast as he could. His skinny body and almost skeleton, made it easier for his feet to carry him.
He wiped his nose of mucus that runs faster than his feet. He realized his dirty, broken, old shirt has almost no space to use for anything like wiping his nose.
Anyway, what was important to him was to reach home and hand over to his stepfather the liquor he was sent to buy on long time credit from a store. He knew that the man would get so upset if he reached home and the can of beer on his hand would be empty before Jason could replace it.
Between shanty homes on a very poor corner of his world, Jason had lived the life of a Nazarene. Despite of it, his goodness at heart had never been altered since it was the kind of world he came up with when he was born.
"You are getting there! Close. You are getting there!"
He assured himself while running.
"Father, I arrived!"
He entered the shanty, sized like a box of men's shoes, rectangular but tiny.
The man was slumped onto a dirty wooden bed on the other end of the shanty. All around him was dirtiness. He himself was the best example of the worst man one could imagine.
Used cans all over the place. Obviously, there had not been any cleaning at all. Added to the scenario were butts of cigarettes and paper wrapper of prohibited drugs. Even used dirty underwear and sticky stuffs.
Jason saw his stepfather trying to sip the last drop of liquor from the can. His eyes got widened with fear. He got to put the glassed liquor he bought before he even asked for it. Otherwise, he would be beaten up again as always. Trying hard to put himself at full speed, he stumbled!
There was a broken shoe half fallen in between the broken shanty floor that he did not see and made him fall to his face.
Unfortunately, the liquor in the glass bottle which he still has fully gripped the upper nose part, but body part of the bottle broken! He did not realize it. All he wanted to happen was to reach the man's side as soon as he could. He stood up and went on running to the man.
"Here father!"
He put forward his hand to him. There he realized seeing what's left in his hand and what had happened to his arms. He was only gripping to the fore nose, upper part of the liquor. His right arm below that has even some little parts of the broken glass in it, and bleeding!
The man's eyes saw it too at the same time. Then passed his look to him that moment he raised his eyes to him. The man's eyes got thinner from its wide status and teeth gritted like knives. Fear overwhelmed the whole of Jason. He could not move.
"What have you done bastard!"
The man seemed to have recovered some energy to stand up though he had been drunk since he woke up taking his first can of beer.
It was eleven in the morning at that moment. He got a dozen of beer from his drug sales that morning. All that was left from the dozen beer was the one on his hand, which he threw on the corner in full blasts of anger. The last penny he had was given to Jason to buy him a stronger liquor on a credit in case the money was not enough. It was not enough as always. But Jason managed to get one for him.
He grabbed Jason by his front shirt, pulled him up at the level of his face and shouted at him all his rage, spitting Jason with his sour saliva.
Jason whisked his eyes and burst into trembling tears.
"I am...sorry."
"What?!"
The drunk man put him down without letting him go and grabbed a metal rod nearby. It was long enough to handle. It was similar to a police bat. Then he started to beat Jason with it as soon as he released him, but kept him from running away from his madness.
"Oh, my God! He is beating him again!"
One old woman came just shaking her head from side to side, peeping by the shanty's door.
"I will call his mom."
The man saw the neighbors' shocking look by the door and went to close it with a devilish look on his face. The people left the shanty running.
Jason kept crying. Just crying out loud, not asking help. He knew that no one would help anyway. His situation at the moment has been a normal thing to him. He could never understand. He had never asked himself anyway.
All he knew, he had been lucky to have a mother and a father when he was born. Deep in his heart, he had always talked and lived with parents whom he saw in his dream and when alone, all by himself. They loved him. He was promised that one day, he would be with them. He never asked when. He just knew that it would happen...one day. His faith assured him it would.
The door suddenly opened. His mother came with a plastic bag in her hand. She was told what was happening again in her house that she grabbed fast the pieces of wrapped drugs she was buying from a provider in their neighborhood. The man had sent her to get more to sell them.
She saw Jason filled with blood all over his body. The man still kept beating him like a mad devil, his eyes reddened with anger as he looked at her arrival. He stopped as he saw the plastic bag in her hand.
"You got them?"
He did not wait for her to answer. He went straight to get it from her hand. He needed to sell more to have something to give to his drug lord. Otherwise, he could get mad if he would not have any sales at all. So he left right away passing through the curious neighbors that crowded the front door.
"Jason!"
The mother cried, shaking. A mother's cry of desperation beyond imagination. Terrifying as it was the look of Jason's body on the floor.
She went to uplift him to check if he was still breathing.
"Jason! Jason!"
The boy's eyes were closed. His bloody face serene. His lips were smiling!
"Jason! Jason, wake up!"
He opened his eyes and in strange lips, he said to his mother unconsciously.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son to save the world."
His mother's eyes and ears could not understand a word he was saying, but she smiled.
"You're alive!"
Then Jason smiled, closed his eyes and his head fell hanging on his mother's arm.
"Jason! Jason!"
He did not respond.
"Jason! Jason!"
She realized he was dead.
"Jasooooonn!"
A very loud cry was heard. All her mother's veins on the face blurted out as if wanting to explode.
The cry seemed not wanting to end.
"She waited too late to decide to leave her wrong doing."
The writer looked around as if wondering who said those words. He thought someone was murmuring to his ears. But no one. He looked at his paper again.
That was an old curious neighbor commenting to the other neighbor.
"As always, the son pays the bill."
The two neighbors looked at each other shaking their heads. Then the police came. All curious neighbors started to leave.
The writer put down his pen. As he covered his face with both hands, the image of that little boy came back to him. He was there. He was one of the neighbors. He said to himself, "I need fresh air."
The pen's ink was leaking as if crying. The writer did not realize it as he left his table and went out to walk.
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