WAITING

 

WAITING 

Standing at the end of the street, dressed in sportswear with a cap tilted slightly to the left, a cigarette in hand, his face suggests trouble. He looks here and there as if he's watching or searching for something, he throws a word or a sentence at each girl who passes next to him, sometimes just staring at her body. He gets tired of standing, sits down, his friend, who resembles him in everything, arrives and sits with him. They talk for a while, then look at the street, they seem to wait for something. They exchange cigarettes, no work today, no work in any day, no study, no skill, no goal, no dreams, only emptiness and waiting…

He gets tired of waiting, the emptiness kills him. What his widowed mother gives him isn't enough for cigarettes and other drugs, he has no diploma or skill, so he starts dealing drugs, all he needs is to stand on the street with customers smoking, he can stand and his friends can smoke, the business succeeded until the police arrested him. He was sent to jail for three months, which was enough for him to leave with a criminal mentality thanks to his interaction with professional criminals in prison. He comes out and starts dealing again but with more professionalism, and engages in criminal activities from time to time until he’s arrested again and sent to jail for two years. And like that, he goes with one crime and comes out with an even bigger one…

A kid from his neighborhood, fourteen years old, doesn’t go to school. His parents are divorced, his mother works all day, no one watches him, so he does whatever he wants, he spends his days on the street. Sometimes he watches our criminal standing at the end of the street in expensive sportswear and with tattoos on his hand. Everyone greets him, everyone respects him, he sees him giving things to people who give him money in return. He looks at him with admiration, wanting to be like him. He goes home, dresses like him, sportswear and a cap tilted slightly to the left, then he also stands at the end of the street with a cigarette in his hand and then sits down. No study, no work, just emptiness and waiting…

Translated By Nada Farsi .