Drinking television

A small boy sat by the side of the road picking at his dusty toes.
Every now and then he lifted a little limp hand to shoo away the flies
that clustered around his eyes.

The doctor, who was watching him from the shade of a cafe veranda,
thought this might be a good sign. Most children stopped bothering with
the flies after a while. He watched the child and sucked at the straw
in his 7-Up. The bottle was cold and the doctor pressed it against his
wrists and forehead. The heat was making him feel so strange, detached,
different. He thought of the brown-eyed children he had seen that
morning with their long lashes encrusted with little black flies and
their haloes of brown hair turning gold with malnutrition.

The boy lifted his hand. He had a piece of green string tied around his
wrist.

The doctor leaned forward in his chair to catch the breeze from the fan
in the dark interior of the cafe. The sweat on his back was almost dry.
He looked at his watch. He had been sitting in the white caf? under the
cracked advertisement for Coca Cola for more than 20 minutes. He was
slowing down, he thought with some satisfaction. At last, he was
slowing down. He sighed deeply in an attempt to release the tightness
that was always in his chest. He massaged his taut cheeks with both
hands. His face was covered in a thin film of dust.

Something on the ground drew the boy's attention for a moment. He gazed
at the ground. His body fell quite still.

The doctor could sense this stillness even from where he sat, 20 yards
away. The boy was relaxed, calm, alert. The doctor felt the muscles in
his own shoulders grow rigid as dry wood. He was alone on the veranda
and for several minutes no one had walked past along the dusty street.
He and the boy might have been the only people on earth.

The sun would be burning hot out there. It was just after midday but
the little boy seemed somehow to be at one with the heat, the doctor
thought. His stillness in the sun was almost monumental.

The doctor's 7-Up gurgled. The bottle was empty. He looked at his watch
again. It was time to go. He stood up and stretched, trying to relax
the hard muscles in his body, but they snapped back into place as he
walked into the dark interior of the cafe. The proprietor was reading
the local paper and sipping tea. The doctor paid for his drink and
turned to go.

Perhaps, he thought. He returned to the counter and bought another
7-Up.

The boy looked up as the doctor walked towards him sending up puffs of
dust. What a lot of clothes he's wearing, the boy thought.. His feet
must be so hot in those shoes. The hat was nice though. Nice to have
your very own patch of shade that travelled around with you. The boy
flicked away a fly.

The man was holding out a drink - a drink beaded with cold. A drink for
him. The boy reached up instinctively. He sucked noisily at the straw.
It was so so cold. It was like drinking television.