리틀팍스

He was the skinniest boy in the area. And he liked it that way. People saw him as a hungry poor teen-aged boy, and if he got lucky, he could earn as much as money as a carriage driver in London. Whenever that happened, he would run over to the pub next town and buy some happiness, as he called the stiff drinks served in dirty glass with fingerprints covering it. His face would turn red as the apples he sometimes stole from the fruit shop with the red roof across the road. He would stumble to his bed made out of thrown-away wooden boards and fall face first into it and lay still, his foul breathe, the only sign of life, rattling in and out. 

Sometimes the dumpster trucks picked him up to the dumping grounds. He would wake up with a stinking sock drenched in sweat on his face and most of his cloth all taken by other beggars. He would fly into a fit of rage and the children in the village would hide behind horse corpses and watch as he kicked and smash anything near him with a sheet of paper bag covering his body. It would eventually stop when his foot hit something hard and made a cracking sound. That will be one of the few times when he was on his knees. His foot would be twisted in an odd angle, and thick tears will escape his murky eyes. The children would snicker silently, remembering the times when that very foot would fly at them. 

It was the daily life of Thomas Candrais and everything about him. But only a few people really knew "Thomas Candrais". Facts about the real Thomas Candrais could only be seen if he was watched carefully. 

He sometimes used German accent. He would casually sing "Los Pollitos Dicen" when he walked down the street to buy happiness. He would always cock his left fourth finger when he was annoyed. His busy eyebrows would be connected when he frowned. He knew how to tap dance. 

It was just a matter of perspective. Some saw him as a drunken worthless beggar. Few saw "him" through the what he seemed like, his oily hair, ripped shirt with brown stains and his droopy eyelids always half-open, covering hid blood-shot eyes. When they got over all of these, they would realize that Thomas was like them. He liked music. He was short-tempered but nice to animals. He was quiet but listened to other people attentively. And they would finally have to admit that Thomas Candrais was actually a nice person. People locked him up in a statement that beggars were all dirty bony cowards or stupid thugs. They never saw him as he actually was. They would click their tongues when they saw Thomas drunk, as if they themselves never were. 

This is a story of a poor beggar, Thomas Candrais, but also a story of nice boy with a friendly smile.