Crowded streets, full of cars the fancy and the regular ones wandering the streets into different destinations, heading to restaurants, theaters, cafe, home or probably heading to a friend’s house.  Where ever it is going, its’ passengers are seeking for rest and joy after a long working day.

There he is resting his back on the traffic light, gazing at its lights switching from green to orange to red. When the orange one comes he stands up hugging a bunch of flowers, ready to move and as fast as the red light appears he mingles between the cars;  charming the passengers one time, praying for them the other as he offers his flowers. Some just close the windows in his face, others curse him to go away and few are those who buy his flowers.

Just like any other  day, he is racing  the time, and moving along with the light and escaping from death every minute as rolling cars pass by him. Behind the windows of the cars he sees all kinds of people the greedy, the kind, the sweet, the evil, the miserable, the tired  and the depressed; all waiting for the green light to move on. The streets are getting quiet; the sidewalks are getting empty with lighting bulbs twinkling softly, and he still has a bunch of flowers to sell, it seems that he won’t be calling the day off any soon.

He sits back in his spot imaging how does it feel to be in a fancy car, wearing elegant clothes, going to beautiful places and eating delicious food. He was taken by his innocent dreams and he forgets all about the lights and the flowers. When a voice comes from behind: “hey sleepy! Get back to work”, he opens his eyes to see his partner looking really happy that he couldn’t help it but ask “why are you this happy?!”,   “you won’t believe it pal, it is God’s mercy, there is this lady, she said I look like her brother so she gave me some extra money”, he says it with joy as his eyes sparkles and he jumps away holding that extra paper money tightly in his hand “I will be in the near street, meet me there when you finish, we’ll go home together”.

His friend’s happiness brought him back to real life, they don’t deserve a wealthy life, and they should be satisfied by the few extra nickels they get from time to time, he stands up and gets back to work.

By the time he sells all his flowers, it was early in the morning; he drags himself to go find his friend. He walks and walks, tired and sleepy, he calls over his name but there was no answer, he thinks maybe he’s home already. With this thought he changes his direction heading home, when he glimpses him sleeping by the corner of the street.

He approaches, stands right above his tiny body, talks to him but he doesn’t respond, he kneels down, shakes his body with his small hands, but he never wakes up, his body as cold as an ice and that paper money still embraced by his small dirty fingers as he hugged a bunch of flowers in the other hand.

The eight years old boy sits there mourning his friend, recalling how happy he was just few hours ago, wondering who will accompany him in his daily journey  across the city’s streets from now on,as kids their age get up in time for school.