Thundery Flames

e old man growls. ”so what should I call you instead ” he asks politely. ”my name is Sam., so call me sam ” the old man pronounced.

”Alright old man sam ” zairo replied, making the mans almost yank out his own hair in frustration. He clearly could not reason with this kid. ”so what is your name? ”

”Zairo. My name is Zairo ” he replies with his finger going into his mouth, trying to pull out the meat that was stuck in his teeth.

”So Zairo are you going to tell me what happened or not? he suddenly asks.

For a split second, Zairo had forgotten about his problems but as the man called Sam asked the question tears came pouring down his cheek uncontrollably.

He then explains to the man every single detail he could remember on how he and his mother had gone to visit her friend and how he met his own chicken partner and then how they were all killed by Arguse. He remembered the name of the man clearly.

After narrating the whole incident to the old man, he was still crying. It was clear that the poor thing was all alone now in the world, he personally knew a thing about losing a loved one. He felt pity for the boy.

” if you like you can stay with me , I don have much to give to you but we will figure it out somehow ”. he proposes with a shrug of his shoulders. Zairo even though he was still a little boy knew how to be grateful. He really had no were to go, his one and only family that he knew of had left him.

He stood up from where he sat in front of the chicken table, and hugged the man ”thank you old man.. ” The man still wanted to protest and say he was not an old man, and was merely 35, but hen he decided on not ruining the moment.

”thank you so much. I promise you will not regret this , I will be very good , I will clean the house and do whatever you want me to ” he declares, making Sam laugh, as he wondered what the little hands that hugged him could do.

****

Now living with his old man, like he promised he was a good boy, he said he would clean the house but instead he managed to make old man do ninety nine percent of the cleaning while he just stayed there as the supervisor.

The whole place was neat and tidy, just the way his mother had taught him. They were getting along very well also, they would wake up in the morning and go out to pick recyclables that they would sell together. This was their means of affording food to eat.

And since they could not be stealing chicken from their neighbors all the time, and could not afford chicken everyday, they picked a special day in the week to have chicken, they named it CHICKEN SATURDAY.

Not a day passed by that Zairo did not think about his mother and every other person that had died that day. He mostly dreamt of his mother, and he thought of her the most.

Sometimes when he would do the dishes, or when he would tie his shoelace or even on chicken Saturdays, he would remember how his mom would tell him he could not live on only chicken and she was right. Not because he could not actually eat chicken forever, but because they could not afford every day chicken.

He sometimes also reflects on the short time he and Zaya had spent together, her mesmerizing eyes that was as if he was staring at a deep dark green forest where the sunlight passed through the narrow spaces in between the trees.

Or how they devoured the fried chicken together that day. How she had agreed to make him her disciple. Everything was perfectly fine in his life before Arguse showed up and destroyed every goodness in his life. He was not going to forgive the man that took everything away from him. Never.