Dreams of the Poor

The lovely music of the ice cream truck spread to the surrounding and stirred up the people.  Habitants of the area were unable to beat the temptation, and crowded around the truck. As the ice-cream man picked up a scoop of ice cream to give it to a customer, its sticky cream dripped to the ground.

A few feet away Ahmed looked longingly at the cold ice-cream, wishing he could savor the cold sweetness. Oh! What wouldn’t he do to have just one? Hesitantly, he took his eyes off the heap of ice cream, feeling his heart sink. With heavy feet, he started walking  towards the school.

Ahmed Shah belonged to a slum area. His father was a drug addict. His mother and his three sisters tried to make ends meet by sewing clothes for the neighborhood women. But no matter how hard they worked, his family never had much money, because most of it was spent by his father on drugs and a very little amount was left for his education.

On that day, instead of going to school, Ahmed decided to go to the old rundown building behind it. Whenever his father beat and verbally abused his mother, he would come running here to hide his tears and find his peace.

When he reached the building, he found it deserted as usual. Climbing the broken stairs, he reached the second floor and sat down tossing his bag aside which immediately tore open and all his books came tumbling out. Ahmed recalled in despair, the countless times when he had asked his mother to buy him ice cream, to which his mother would retort, “Poor people’s children can’t afford such luxuries. Ice-cream is not for us, they are not in our fate, you should stop dreaming about eating them.”

Tears rolled down from his eyes until he spotted something which made his eyes sparkle. He saw a hundred rupee note in the balcony. He trudged towards balcony to pick it. As the balcony was in dilapidated condition, the railing was missing and the bricks towards the end of the balcony were loose. With deep concentration, Ahmed stepped onto the balcony and slowly edged forward. With every step he took, he feared that the floor would give way. Finally, he kneeled down to pick up the note and smiled. He would buy the ice-cream for his younger sister who loved it, and prove to his mother that she was wrong. Dreams could really come true.

Too overjoyed to see where he was going; he stepped on a loose section of the floor which promptly gave way. Screaming, he tried to grasp something for support, but unfortunately his hand found nothing. He fell backwards, plunging down the building.