The old woman looked up at the Sun for a split second and than quickly lowered her gaze and shaded her eyes from the blistering heat. She than turned and slowly walked off through the traffic of cars and the babble of voices.

She turned her dim eyes which so long ago had lost the sparkle, searching for disposable and reusable plastic bottles. On spotting one she trudged off into it's direction while Porsches and BMW's roared off.

Blindly she passed a wrinkled hand over the pavement, wincing as her bare feet touched the furnace-hot ground. After finally finding her bottles, she filled them all with barley water and sold them to different passer-bys. All of these passer-bys led different lives from this aged woman.

As the sun sets, she sat down on the ground and wiped the sweat from her forehead. Once more the binding pains start in first her head and than her whole body. They throb through her body and she endures them as she has always done.

After collecting her daily earnings, she slogs off in the direction which she calls Home'. Where one day, she reasons, someone will discover her dead.
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Learn more about this author, Zaineb Zahid.
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