Of dogs and children

I wake up, open the window and breathe. It's overcast, but the air feels just as heavy indoors as outdoors. I log onto the computer and read the news. Politics, the market, a new iphone, Lady Gaga’s latest outfit, overcast with 50% chance of rain, two traffic accidents. At the bottom of the screen, a small, hard-to-see picture. I enlarge it: an anonymous street in some modern city, crumpled paper, cigarette butts, stained asphalt. No trees, no shade, no one walking. In the middle of the empty space, two dirty dogs slouch against a footstep that looks like the entrance of a store. With the dogs, his head resting on the belly of one of them and his bare feet on the back of the other, there's a boy of undetermined age. All three are deeply asleep. The boy has shaggy, long hair and dirty nails. In a somehow surreal fashion, he's halfway wrapped in a white blanket with blue stripes. The white still looks white.

Translated by Lina Strenio