Orphan: A short story on jungle justice

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The sun heating the tarred road burned my feet as I walked through the street of Lagos barefooted, my stomach didn't hesitated to rumble loudly to the tone of hunger I felt. I felt weak as I struggled to put down the bucket full of sachet water from my orphaned head, I had not eaten for days and felt sick from the mosquito bites I got at the corner under the bridge where I slept every night.

I would sit beside the road every afternoon watching children my age come back from school. I haven't crossed the four walls of a school building since mother died a year ago, I had never known my father but mother said he died the day I was born. She used to sell leaves in the market to get money to feed, clothe, shelter me and buy my school books.

I missed her dearly, I soon fell asleep. I was awakened by the bites of hunger in my stomach, I cried as I staggered through the street seeking for a kind heart soul to help me with something to eat. It was evening already and I decided to take bread from the shop of a lady and run with it. "I need to survive" I thought. If only eight years old me had known better, I wouldn't have done that.

The crowd as the woman held onto me, the woods that landed on my already weak body, the curses and abuses that were showered on me, the blood that gushed out of my body, the weight of the tyre that was hanged around my neck. I heard a voice say "as you small so you dy steal" I looked at him even though my vision was blurred. He had a boy around my age beside him, he was the boys father, I could have been his son.

The terror I felt as I heard another voice say "burn am" but I couldn't take my eye off the boy as I started to wish I was him. The pain from the flames I was in made me cry out but no one was moved, I was just eight. I can't say much anymore, I guess I'll be dead soon. I hope to see mother and father in heaven, atleast now I'll get to rest.