REM

Chocolate

Most people think of slums as places where children run around unsupervised, adults beg for money in dirty and tattered clothes, and petty crimes are committed in the name of survival. To continue to think like that would be ignorant, for that is definitely not what happens.

I have lived in the slums for many years now. Survival is based on who you know actually. If someone employs you, or takes pity on you, there is a chance you will survive long enough to get out. For those who aren't so lucky, the slums will be the last home they ever know.

Earning money didn't happen that often. Food was a priority, so was running water. Whether water was clean or not wasn't debated much. If you didn't accept what was given to you, someone else would take it. It wasn't that people in the slums were greedy, or desperate, they just had a better understanding and an appreciation for the little blessings that came their way. Things didn't show up often, so you either ate the stale bread your job paid you, or you starved until the next one came along.

For children who didn't work, yet were all smiles, those were the ones giving the slums the bad reputation. Many were toothless because of all the sugar they were consuming. Wealthy men wearing suits would come into town, waving chocolate bars in children's faces. The deal was simple, you do something for them, you get what they had.

Most children tried to snatch the sweets right out of the hands of the wealthy, but were usually backhanded, or beat to the ground by body guards who had no tolerance for misbehaving vermin. If you agreed to do the task and completed it, you would receive what they offered, a very simple process. And if they chose you for multiple tasks, eventually you would disappear. Many rumoured that the children were orphans, that's why no one ever made a fuss about them going missing. There were also rumours floating around that the children were taken to factories, forced into slave work. A good worker who was motivated by candy was apparently what the wealthy desired in the thriving cities outside the slums.

Those smiling, sometimes toothless children who remained, they knew to alternate every time there was a new visitor with an offer. It didn't matter what the job was, if it was your turn, you had to do it. They would receive payment, then share with all the others. That was the deal anyway, but some tried to break it. I saw a group the other day kicking and punching a little boy on the ground who had broken the rule within their circle. By the time I walked by the group, they had finished, leaving him with a blood-covered face and probably several broken ribs. If he was lucky, he would learn his lesson and run away.

Kids here were savage. I was older and had some common sense. Morals and values came in handy as well, but those were instilled within me by my mother at a young age. Without her, I would be just like them, running around, doing whatever I wanted. I would be a savage, a child without a cause, a nuisance, a plague, a stupid little shit that would break someone's ribs just for eating my sixteenth of candy.

I was in the last remaining grocery store in the slums when a group of kids stopped outside the window. Through the security meshed glass and display, I could see them huddled. Whatever they were up to, wasn't good. But I had nowhere to go, so I walked further from the entrance towards the back of the store near the cold drink section. The prices weren't in my budget, but I would be safer there if a robbery were to take place.

Most of the time kids would attack the store owner with rocks and sticks, stealing bags of chips before leaving in a hurry. Since there weren't any police in the slums, nothing would happen. And since most people couldn't afford what was in the store, most of those stolen bags of chips were stale, which made me laugh inside as the children spat them back out a few blocks away. As hungry as they were, they had the nerve to be picky.

I looked up into the cracked, dome shaped mirror in the corner of the store. A young boy ran in and seemed to be holding a gun at the store owner.

"Gimme money!" he demanded, clearly with a few too many teeth missing as he spoke with a lisp.

The clerk stood there with hands in the air, unwilling to give up the – almost certain – very small float that was in the cash register.

"Now!" yelled the boy again, clearly in a hurry.

Sneaking up the aisle, I peeked around the corner to see his hands shaking as he pointed the small gun towards the store owner. He looked back at the boy, a blank look on his face as if he didn't have a single thing to lose by dying. Maybe the man did want to die. I never spoke to him for very long when I came in. I never asked any personal questions, or cared to know his story, nor did he mine.

As the stalemate dragged on, the gun went off with a loud bang. A small puff of smoke filled the air and the boy ran, dropping the gun to the ground. Another boy ran back inside for the gun, then left as well before I noticed the owner had been shot and fallen down behind the counter. I was a witness to a crime that would go unpunished. A crime that was probably done in exchange for some teeth-rotting chocolate.