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A Short Story : A Story?

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Ella followed her mother down the narrow streets of mud and stone, between the sagging, grey buildings. It was a long walk, and hard not to slip and fall in the mud, but by now the stench from the garbage piles was hard to notice. Each new street was like a dirty mirror to the last, and scrawny cats claimed their territory among the tired, starving people. They were heading deeper into the city, and finally turned onto the cleaner streets. It was a sudden change, from the broken walls to where men played that they were gods without the immortality of heros. There were no garbage piles here, and the dry stones felt strange to Ella’s small bare feet. They reached the wide open space, where a crowd was steadily growing, a tense pool of souls, before the proudest building of all. Ella knew this place, the white pillars and the high balcony where sugar words rained from the sky and left puddles of blood on the smooth pavement. Standing in the crowd, along the walls and street corners, stood the guards in their metal skin, watching with their metal eyes. “Mommy?” “Yes, love?” “Can I have a flower? I want one of those white ones up there. Can I have one, please?” “No.” “But why? Why Mom?”
“Because that’s the way things are.” Ella looked up at her face, the sad eyes set in the mask of grime and sweat. She said that a lot, and that was always the end of it.
And then Ella saw the shadow. The dark human figure was perched on the roof close by. “Mommy, look!”
“Not now, love.”

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