Only You
In his bruised, freezing hands, he clutched his only worldly possession: a small, battered yellow plastic digger, missing one of its back wheels.
He was pushing it back and forth through a freezing puddle of muddy rainwater nestled between the thick roots of the oak. The tip of his tongue stuck out of the corner of his chapped mouth, his pale eyebrows furrowed in deep, solitary concentration as he used the plastic bucket to scoop up tiny pebbles, carefully moving them from one side of the puddle to the other.
In this tiny, muddy corner of the world, he was in control. He was content. He was entirely unaware that the fragile peace of his morning was about to be shattered.