But I’m Hungry- Story of a Starving Child

Everyone is starving—of love and liquor, things which are precious amiss clouded minds such spectacular. Each day is nothing but the same day thrice, with each wanting to take over the realities of this gruesome world, and if there is anything to life—ask of that hungry child at the end of the damp platform. The walls of the stomach are giving up on him, and so are his wishes to live. For the art of death is now the most beautiful gifts that can be bestowed upon him with such mercy.

Have you ever felt so hungry that you could not think, and all that was around you started moving like squares? The ground falls onto your knees and you are three meters buried inside your own skin. The on-goer looks at you in such hostility, knowing that you are going to die within the next eleven seconds. O beautiful world, no one will even care to help the dying—such an artistic world it is after all.

The veins are dead and a millisecond later, news over the radio would say that drought has struck earth and is going to last for the next five years. Purity in each selfish act, you lie here like today is another beautiful gifts, with hopes summiting such rapidly each time an on-goer comes close to you. You still wish, the faith is such strong that humanity may still be left of the humans.

The concrete wall on your left is also starving, with everything that there once was, and now they have built corporate buildings on top of each other like the wait at Hillary Step before summiting Everest. There was once, a long time ago in August, beside the last of the loved—Augustus, in his memory, his lover built an artistic center where people could share and display their art—a part of their imaginations in display. Everything was such exquisite until the thick skinned, self-inflicted corporate animals took over the land and industrialized it with so many big black buildings built on top of each other. And his lover, she left with another man.

Today, as you sit beside the same shrine, which will never be recognized by the society, and you remember Augustus, of all that was so unfair to him in his short span of life, the winds crawl out of haven and the tempests die in memento. The wolves have long left and dying is the kid, once recognized and praised for his artistry and creativeness—now the same teacher walks beside you, acting like she never knew you. But it’s all a beautiful plan, they will never understand.

So many riches, but what of kindness and compassion as you die. On your left, you will see me starving to death as well. I have never seen, for the grains of satisfaction have never appealed to me. The desires, for a voice to call out towards me that I was alright—Papa—how much on earth I miss you in this chaotic life which I do not want to live anymore.

We are dying, and dying are the wishes of a three year old who wanted nothing but to become a human at the end of his life. As you replenish your last days here, the quiet footpath and the fragmented pieces of rice lying on its surface. You reach out towards it, trying very hard to maintain the breaths which are almost null, and all that transpires—the end is always such comforting for the poor and the hungry souls at least. You see me dying as you are and during our last few lungs of air, with all we could whisper—the remaining pieces of love such unconditional. “Hold this my dear friend, and consume it like we are in paradise.” That was the only grain left within the ten kilometer radius and you gave the last one to me—you are such a beautiful human, I cannot describe. But I’m already overwhelmed by your single act, I do not need any grain to save me now—it was such a pleasure knowing you and in death we shall be freed.

-Yogesh Chandra