In the photo, a tiny child smiled innocently and brilliantly.
This was the very photo of the girl he had seen before, just missed by the assistant in their haste.
He glanced at the photo, strode to the corner of the room, and casually tossed the photo away.
The photo hit the rim of the garbage can and perfectly balanced on the edges of the square bin.
Moses didn’t notice, simply taking a glass from the shelf, pouring himself a drink, raising it to his lips, and gulping it down.
The liquor was spicy, sliding down his throat like a ball of fire scorching his empty stomach.
A wind blew from afar, like a hand with no warmth, flicking the man’s hem and winding around his side, making the photo leaning against the trash can flutter continuously. Finally, it fell down, twirling in mid-air, and landed at the man’s feet on the balcony.
Noticing the slight sound, Moses looked down and saw, under the moonlight, a delicate girl’s innocent and pure smile.
Moses remembered that the sun was shining brightly that day.
She walked over, her pale little hand holding a one-yuan coin from her mother out to him, speaking in a childish voice.
The shiny coin was blinding under the sunlight.
Twenty years on, he still remembered how she looked then.
She was about three years old, dressed in exquisite clothes, a white princess dress with luxurious hand-crafted lace on the hem, and tiny red carved leather shoes on her feet.
Her smile was like an angel from the stained glass windows of a church.
She smelled sweet all over, like a fresh cream ice cream, irresistibly tempting one to take a bite.
He, on the other hand, was ragged, with hunger growling in his belly, and could not remember the last time he bathed, his hands streaked with black dirt.
Snatching the coin from her hand, he ran off.
Dashing across the street, he turned into an alley, ran through it to a bakery where a one-yuan coin could buy two discounted loaves of bread left from the previous night.
If he was lucky, he might even get an about-to-expire carton of milk for free.
But as soon as he entered the alley, a leg stretched out to trip him, and the coin fell from his hand, bouncing on the ground with a clang, spinning for a while before slowly coming to a stop.
An older child came over and picked up the coin from the ground.
"That’s mine!" he said, struggling to lift his slender arms, eyes locked on the coin warming in the older child’s hand, "She gave it to me!"
"Dirty brat," someone stepped on his back, "don’t you know, this is our turf? Remember, next time you get money, you pay us first!"
The two older kids laughed out loud, the foot on his back lifted off, and before leaving, they didn’t forget to kick him in his thin ribs.
Watching them head deeper into the alley, he got up and grabbed a piece of rebar from the garbage bin that someone had discarded.
Then, he ran, sprinting with all his might, swinging the rebar hard onto the back of the head of the tallest kid.
Blood splattered out.
He didn’t care, he just swung the rebar with all his strength, they kicked him, he struck...
Eventually, they collapsed, bloodied, kneeling before him begging for mercy.
He still didn’t care, just kept swinging the rebar in his hands.
Again and again and again...
When both of them stopped moving, he was still swinging his arms.