Alien World

Eyes so pure, twinkling in the searing sun.
The pounding heart knew no pain, all but one..

The scorching heat reflected from his already burnt skin. The torn red tee shirt and blue wornout shorts hardly did any good. Immune, he continued playing this rather bizarre game. He'd fill a hollow plastic ball with mud (picking the mud with his bare hands), and hurl it towards his other charcoal friend, with all the might in his frail arms. The ball would simply roll, the mud pouring out uncontrollably; like the life running out on a cancer patient. The other kid, running barefeet on gravel and stones, would pick it and then have a go at it himself. This monotonous banal recreation miraculously seemed to generate such incredulous amounts of exhilaration and uncorruptable joy in the kids, you'd be amazed. They defied the prime law of physics, creating joy out of nothing..

No elixir can rival the fountain of youth.
For a senile brain is, The Keeper of Truth.

Not very far, his grandfather watched the little Hercules. The old man had lived in this world for too long. He lay back on a plastic chair. He wore a white cap, white clothes, but a dark skin. Life had sucked all the life out of him. All that was left to do, was to wait. His foot was infected, obnoxiously swollen, a typical case of elephantitis. He closed his eyes, exhausted by the breathing. A fly flew annoyingly on his face, but he couldn't care less. The peaceful hackneyed afternoon, scented by the smell of human perspiration, was perfect for his nap. He hummed to the sound of periodic beating of clothes on a stone rock, nearby..

Only a mother, alone, can thwart adversity's threat.
The hand that rocked the cradle, also, broke a sweat..

She slogged, and slogged, without the slightest hint of dissent. She fed, she cleaned, she earned. The Vim washing powder contrasted on her black sturdy hands as she washed the clothes, and hung them on the barbed wire which formed the compound for their house that had walls made of tin and hearts made of gold. Eyeing an occasional customer, she'd leave the open air laundry and walk to her adjacent general store, with an air of an heiress. Life couldn't break her, not in a million years. She could weep without shedding a tear. And her little Hercules would one day make all the crying go away. It is impossible to measure a mother's love, yet more difficult, to defeat..

These souls lived for family, love and a modest meal.
Welcome to the Alien World, where life had a simpler feel..