A CRY FOR THE FORGOTTEN

A girl discovers another dead body in the slums of Recife, Brazil .

It never should have happened that way. It was approaching midday when the shot was fired.

I was bathing my two little brothers, Davi and Faro, when I heard him cry and then the thud of him hitting the sandy ground. No one left their place and all that was heard after was the sound of footsteps running away from the scene. Even Davi and Faro weren’t afraid.

They turned towards me and asked,

“What was that?”

“I don’t know guys,” I said, rubbing the sponge under Davi’s arm.

They were too young to know about murder.

“I want to find out,” said Davi, trying to push the sponge away thinking that he was clean enough.

If I was right and another had been killed, I knew there wouldn’t be any surprises in what we saw. But Davi and Faro were very persistent and I felt there was no need in refusing to see what had happened, so I quickly dried them off, got them into their blue shorts, and we left the slum.

* * *

 

If it had been the first one, maybe people would have cared, but here in Recife, Brazil nothing is unfamiliar. Deaths are normal and occur almost every day.

My two brothers and I headed towards where the shot had been fired. People were already there, gathered around the body, but no one was staring at the ground. Davi stared at the boy who lay sprawled in front of his feet and began to look uncomfortable. Davi was only 6 years old, but still got squeamish around the dead. Faro took his brother to the wall of one of the slum houses and the two boys sat down on the dusty ground. Faro put an arm around his brother and pulled him close, to comfort him.

“It’s okay,” Faro whispered calmly to his brother, “When I was young, I got scared too.”
Faro was 8 years old and had already learned how to take care of his younger brother when I wasn’t around.
My mother had died in childbirth when Davi was born and after she died, my father took care of us as best as he could until he was killed by a group of boys who beat him constantly with a beaten-up baseball bat and stole the little food he had which he had been trying to take home.
I can still remember that dreadful day and how at age 13 I had to take care of my two younger brothers all by myself.

All my life, I have been faced with crime and poverty, and all I’ve known is this little run-down destroyed home where my two brothers and I live. The Coque slums have been all we know.

* * *

I now stared at the body before me. The boy was dressed in dark blue jean shorts, a ripped black T-shirt, a black

wrist band that ran up his arm, and was shoeless. The more I stared at this boy the more I realized that I recognized him; he was Thiago Franklino de Lima, one of my good friends. He had helped me get used to the whole idea of living alone and had helped me take care of Davi and Faro when they were younger. He was much older than me but even so I missed him. He was 21 years old and now would never live to see another day.
I couldn’t believe who would do such a horrible thing to this poor young man and felt that he deserved to be buried instead of displayed on the dirty ground for all the world to see.

His face was covered with dirt, probably from the fall, and his chest was soaked with fresh blood.
I couldn’t believe that no one cared that there was a corpse lying in front of them. Most people were either passing by or just talking amongst themselves. Davi and Faro were in the midst of it all and were close to this girl named Cecília dressed all in black who was leaning up against the metal bars that were attached to the house. Cecília looked at the boys but didn’t say a word.

On the other side of my little brothers was a group of girls talking to each other about how boiling the sun was. I didn’t know them or the little boy who was leaning against the wall listened intently to their conversations as if the sun was the most fascinating topic in the world.
There were other people standing around.

A man dressed in a red T-shirt wearing a blue baseball cap and beige shorts was talking to this woman in an orange T-shirt and light blue shorts. They were discussing the soccer game and how the man had heard that Brazil had lost last night. This intrigued the topless boy in black shorts beside them who began to listen what the man was saying. Besides the bright colours, the scene looked like death had cast itself upon Coque. The dusty gray coal roofs, the whitish brown slums, even the pale gray sky. It looked like Recife had been washed out of colour and the people were trying to cover it up by spreading their bright coloured clothes all over the scene. I had to admit, I was even contributing to the cause by wearing a mauve tube top with a black ribbon around it, but it blended more with the washed out scene than with the reds, oranges, pinks, and baby blues that stood out.
I looked at my two brothers who didn’t understand much about death but did understand that it constantly occurred here in the Coque slums. Davi had calmed down and Faro was sucking his light blue pacifier and staring into space. I had never understood why at that age Faro still had a pacifier, but Davi had never liked those rubber soothers and never really needed them because he always fell asleep with nothing in his mouth. He never cried enough to need one. Faro, on the other hand, was always crying and never could get to sleep without one, but I knew that soon he would need to adjust and not use it.

Soon a photographer appeared and began taking pictures of the scene. I assumed he was just another tourist, but didn’t really understand why he would be taking pictures of slums when there was a dead body in front of us. The tourists were very peculiar; some appeared at our slums and took pictures as if awestruck by our life style.

Then I saw him; the man who had killed Thiago. He was standing just a few feet behind the tourist and was dressed in ripped jeans and a white T-shirt. He was shoeless and had long dirty blonde hair that was matted over his head. He held a black gun in his hand and was pointing the barrel at me. No one seemed to notice this man and I began to laugh knowing that before long my life in this poor homicidal wasteland would be over.
As soon as the shot was fired, people began to run from the scene, looking frightened. I just stood there as the bullet pierced through my skin and into my heart. I didn’t even cry out as the blood began seeping through my shirt. The blow sent me flying into the wall and I slid down to the ground. Through squinted eyes, I could see people still running away from the new body that had just been struck by the penetration of death. I couldn’t even see my brothers as I lay there dying. Maybe someone had taken them away from the scene. I knew they would be alright. The photographer took one more picture before leaving and I wonder if he even felt uncomfortable taking pictures of the dead or dying. The man who had fired the gun had disappeared as quickly as he had placed himself at the scene, and I knew that he would probably never be found.

The pain in my chest was unbearable and I could already feel death’s sleep overcoming me. I smiled, as the darkness carried me away.