He reeked of sadness. It was an aura that pervaded him—coiling and spiraling around him in thick, dense clouds. We watched him through transparent layers of cotton candy as he walked around the carnival’s games. His back was hunched with age, and his long, sinewy arms hung like branches. Motionlessly, we stared at him, terrified of his aura. 

“What is he doing?” We whispered to each other. 

As an outsider among kids and parents, he piqued our curiosity. We craved to learn more—too nosy for our own good. 

He sat down and started begging. Chapped lips opened and closed, calloused hands gripping an old coffee cup. He asked passersby for loose change. It was a pathetic, feeble voice. 

We bit our lips to keep ourselves from openly gagging. 

Past the occasional apology or rare donation, everyone ignored him. We listened to the few clatters of the coins as they dropped in.

He walked, and we followed. One hand holding the cup and the other in a pocket, we moved a few feet behind him. His breath sounded like it took effort, chest rising and dropping like a slow-motion video of the tide.

With a grunt, he sat down on a bench in a densely crowded area. The girl propped up on the opposite side scowled, and in one irritated, sweeping motion, stood up and rushed away. He acted blasé. Reaching into his beat-up jean pocket for a half-smoked cigarette, he and lit it on his third try. He inhaled. And exhaled. 

The smoke danced in the air, hugging it and polluting it into a darker gray. 

We felt the palpable boundary between us. While he was an immediate prey to time, we would live in the years he would be gone. Time’s arrow wasn’t marching straight anymore. Instead, it bowed down in our presence. 

That’s when it started. 

Our friend was the first to go. She rushed up, breaking away from the group, and bent over to grasp a stick on the pavement. It was jagged and old, sort of in the way he was. She casted a smile at us that mocked us. “Are you scared of this?” She hurled the stick at the man. It made contact. His eyes contorted in brief shock and confusion. Fingers touched his face where the stick grazed it with tender anger. 

What would he do now? We ogled as other kids started to gather around, laughing with their arms bent under their stomachs. Children hiccupped with grins ear-to-ear, snot racing down their faces. 

They took his cup and dumped the contents on the floor. They blew dirt in his face. The beggar seemed to be trying to sink into his clothing. 

Then, we started doing it too. We were drunk not with the power but the exercising of it. Was everyone else at fault, or was there something wrong with us? The key didn’t fit the lock. Was the problem with the key or the lock? When the adults didn’t bat an eye, how could the locks on our heart-shaped boxes be contained? In another time, they would have asked him, “Why don’t you just get a job?” Right now, our hearts told us that we were right to do this. 

So, teasing turned to pinches. Pinches turned to slaps. Slaps turned to kicks. Kicks turned to endless torment. 

From the bench, he fell to the floor when a rock hit his face. 

“Fucking loser.” We swore like our fathers.

There was a satisfying click as he fell to his place. Streaks of blood flowed down, kissing the dirt on his cheeks. With his lighter, we lit the end of a trashed cigarette and burned symmetrical holes in his hand. He mumbled, but we couldn’t hear his words. 

We knew that when it’s all over, it won’t just be kids being kids. Kids turn into adults and stay scumbags. 

The lights, in all their fluorescent glory, branded the scene in our minds. The thing on the floor. Alone. The candy apple booths in the background, where we set out to reap our rewards, stealing remaining coins from the cup.

We forgot all about the thing shivering on the floor before even taking a bite. 

The heart is deceitful above all things, and exceedingly corrupt. 

Who can understand it?