Let's all find the little boy in us...

"He had a filthy towel tied under his jaw as if he suffered from toothache and even by their new world standards he smelled terrible. He had no shoes at all and his feet were wrapped in rags and cardboard tied with green twine and any number of layers of vile clothing showed through the tears and holes in it. Of a sudden he seemed to wilt even further. He leaned on his cane and lowered himself into the road where he sat among the ashes with one hand over his head. He looked like a pile of rags fallen off a cart. They came forward and stood looking down at him.

The boy squatted and put a hand on his shoulder. He's scared Papa. The man is scared.

I don't think you should touch him.

Maybe we could give him something to eat.

The boy took the tin and handed it to the old man. Take it, he whispered. Here.

The old man raised his eyes and looked at the boy. The boy gestured at him with the tin. He looked like someone trying to feed a vulture broken in the road. It's okay, he said.

You should thank the boy you know, the man said. I wouldn't have given you anything.

Maybe I should and maybe I shouldn't.

Why wouldn't you?

I wouldn't have given him mine.

You don't care if it hurts his feelings?

Will it hurt his feelings?

No. That's not why he did it.

Why did he do it?

He looked over at the boy and he looked at the old man. You wouldn't understand, he said. I'm not sure I do.

Maybe he believes in God.

I'm not sure what he believes in.

When he looked back the old old man had set out with his cane, tapping his way, dwindling slowly on the road behind them like some storybook peddler from an antique time, dark and bent and spider thin and soon to vanish forever. The boy never looked back at all."

-The Road