{Carlos and Jane} Community Service

[CalamityJane]

This was so exciting! Her dreams to help people were coming true. Okay, so she never thought that she'd end up in a low down part of a Chinese Province, but she was getting the chance to help, which was the main thing. And traveling to a country she'd never been to was a once in a life time opportunity to. While she'd been living in the outskirts of London, she'd gone to university to do a degree in social care, she'd worked at numerous places including youth clubs, children's homes, old people's homes and shelters. All she wanted to do with her life was to help people.

Her mother and father weren't exactly happy with their only daughter's chosen profession. After all, they were people from society. Blue bloods. They didn't associate with people lower than them. They didn't mix and mingle with them to avoid all kinds of nastiness. Her parents had very old views. Views that Soph had tried and failed miserably to follow. She wanted to help those in need. She had a good heart. Too good sometimes. She'd been used and walked over too many times, but even after that, she'd still believed in the fact that everyone had good inside them. And for that, she was naive, despite knowing the harsh realities of the real world. She believed that if she did enough, things would change, become better.

And that's what led her to this rundown place. It looked horrendous compared to what she was used to. But it was worth it. If she could help these children...

It started to rain and Sophie quickly put up her umbrella to protect her long blonde hair even for a few minutes walking to the door. Sophie took pride in how she looked though. She didn't mind getting dirty, but when she was clean, she liked to look decent. And she looked oddly out of place already here. Like she was lost or something. She had made sure to leave all expensive stuff at home though. She might want to look good, but she had the sense to know not to be stupid and look good to get herself mugged.

Sophie eventually located her apartment, what would be the equivalent to a small studio flat - just not as nice, that you got in the UK. You had the bathroom and kitchen, and then what must qualify as a bedroom and living room area. It was a tight squeeze, but it was only her. The light didn't work. The tap was dripping and the wall paper was ripped and missing in places.

"No place like home." She smiled.

Despite the horridness of the place, Sophie rather liked it. And this would be her home until she finished working at the youth club and decided to do something else. And she couldn't wait to meet her neighbours. She'd been told that some of them in this apartment also worked at the Youth Center.

Everything was perfect.

[Carlos_Joaquin]

The sound of flies, hovering around the room. It is a hot and humid late summer day. The guy is sitting on an uncomfortable wooden chair. It was Sunday, you see, his free day. A bottle of burning hot single malt and a wide glass stood on the table. The glass itself had a million finger marks and was barely transparent, some flies even fed off the dirt on it. Every now and then, the guy took a decent sip of it. The one window in his room led to a dirty alleyway, it was closed. The red light of the late afternoon flourished until the clouds covered it all and the usual rain cleaned the streets. As he opened the window to enjoy the cold breeze, the guy scratched his beard and slowly stretched his body. He'd been sitting there for quite a while it seemed. His back was still hurting from the day before. Looking around the room, he found an old document and a photo lying next to an old suitcase that somehow the wind had managed to open. It was some old marriage certificate and the picture of two children, an Asian looking boy and a ginger girl of almost the same height smiling at the camera. Without looking at the documents directly, he took all the documents from the suitcase and shoved them into a drawer filled with old instruction manuals.

Out of his pocket, he took out a pack of cheap fags and lit one up. He turned on his radio, “Like a rolling stone” by Bob Dylan was playing. A moment later and he'd be lying on his bed fake-sleeping until the next morning, but somebody knocked on his door. Once he got to the door, a 16-ish girl with hot pants and the most promiscuous shirt in the history of mankind was looking at him in the worst way possible.

“Oh, Mr. Zheng. Are you busy?” The girl's name was Li Min.

“I am, what do you want?” His voice was deep and primitive, he was very drunk. Li Min looked behind him to see the bottle in his empty room.

“I thought you weren't home, but then I heard the music. You promised you were gonna give me extra lessons during the weekend.” Zheng gave a slow and almost silent growl before moving aside and saying.

“Come in.”

He'd started giving all the children in the neighbourhood classes every second day to keep their parents from complaining about him. Some of the children, were more than a little over-zealous with their lessons and rumours had started to spread about this specific girl and him. Her father was a drunkard too, but the wrong kind if you know what I mean. Normally, she was the first person to come to his classes and the last one to leave. Most of the other children in the neighbourhood avoided her and called her names like slut or worse. Sometimes, she knocked on his door at night, almost every time wearing the marks of her father's cowardice. There were several cases like hers in the building, but she was the only girl among them and the youngest one of them. Like some of the other girls, she didn't go to school very often and she wore surprisingly good clothes for her whole situation. It was sadly clear to Zheng how she managed to afford those luxuries, but that was just a symptom of the sickness called poverty.

He sat on the bed while she turned off the radio and started singing with an unnatural beauty. Zheng never saw himself as a paedophile, just wasn't his style. He'd never touched the girl in an unseemly manner, but they'd slept next to each other more than one night and it was pretty clear she had a crush on him. Nothing he took serious of course, but she had a beautiful talent. Under his tutelage, she had a shot of escaping this hell-hole for sure.
(Her Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBovebH_cTc )