Loneliness was his only companion. He sat on a concrete bench, facing a grey wall where someone had written “C.BRA” in white paint with a black border. He didn't know what it meant, nor did he care. It only reminded him that there was someone else in the world, someone who perhaps also felt lonely and abandoned.

Next to him, there was a black bag containing his few belongings (old clothes, a bottle of water, a storybook he had found in the rubbish). It was the only thing he had left, after his family had thrown him out of the house for being different, for not following their rules, for seeing the world from another point of view.

He had no one else. No one to love him, or maybe a stray dog that you can't see in the picture. No one to understand him or to listen to his stories. He lived on the street, sleeping wherever the night took him. Eating whatever appetizing food he could find on the poles served on the street, and maybe from someone who would sympathise and give him a loaf of bread. Walking, dodging looks of contempt or pity. In his mind, he kept asking himself the same question: “Was it worth living?” … If one day he would find a meaning to his existence, if one day he would stop feeling unique in the world.

But he was not giving up. He had a hope, an illusion, a goal. He wanted to leave that place, he wanted to travel, he wanted to know the land where he was born, he wanted to see other realities, he wanted to find someone like him. That's why, every day, he looked at the traffic sign above his head, indicating a left turn. “Was that the direction he should take?”, the one that would lead him to his destination, the one that would make him happy... He asked himself over and over again.

One day “decided”, he got up from the bench, picked up his black bag, and walked to the left, where the sun went down every evening. He didn't know what awaited him, but he was willing to find out. He left without looking back, without saying goodbye to the wall. Furthermore, he marched with his loneliness in tow.

Credits

• Title Art: CoolText

• Design and assembly: PowerPoint Office 365 Pro