A man sat on the filthy ground of an alley in New York City. The sounds of activity was all around him - cars driving by on the streets at both ends of the alley, airplanes flying overhead, people on the balconies of the buildings to either side, his two children playing in front of him - yet all seemed dead silent. All was quiet in his mind except the piercing, never-ending scream of his despair. His kids played on, in the rusty old Chevrolet in which the three of them lived. They each held broken toys which he had found in nearby dumpsters. He didn't let them come with him on his dumpster-diving expeditions - he couldn't risk anyone knowing about them. He knew the government would take them away from him and he would never see them again. He had been on the streets for so long; his wife was dead and his family couldn't care less. The thought of his two beautiful children, jewels in a world of filth and sin, living in a foster home, maybe even separated from one another, terrified and sickened him.
He almost gagged at the thought. His children, John and Elizabeth, stopped right in the middle of an action scene and blinked at him. "Are you okay, Daddy?" John asked.
Now he did gag, but not in disgust. He felt his face crack, the wall of strength and fortitude crumble beneath the force of their love. They deserved so much more than he could ever give them. Guilt flooded him, despair brought rivers of tears down his face. He struggled to breathe, clenched his eyes shut and turned away from them, wanting to shield them from his failures, his regrets. He didn't want them to worry, yet he wondered every day how they stayed so content living as they did.
Elizabeth began to cry as well. John looked dumbfounded and tried to comfort her, holding her head against his chest as he gazed at his father. "Daddy, what's wrong? Did you hurt yourself or something?"
"I-" David still could not bring himself to look at them, to face them. He thought that maybe if he cried without looking at them, he could disguise it, but his inability to speak betrayed the depth of his depression.
For so long, too long, they sat there, he and Elizabeth crying while John cradled her and wondered why they had started crying for no apparent reason. Finally, David rose to his feet, still turned away from them. "I-.. I'm g-going out. I'll be back later. B-be safe, I won't be gone long."
He saw John nod just before he scrambled out of the alley. Once out, he dropped against the wall facing the street. The sun seemed brighter at there, hotter, as though the universe itself were giving him no solace, nowhere to hide his pain. He released his tears again, pressing his dirty, ripped shirt against his eyes. Short of breath, he convulsed, trying to suck in breath but his sobs preventing any intake of air. He felt light-headed, dizzy, as though the world were spinning off its axis.
