This is a short story very loosely inspired by a real sighting from my childhood.


The young beggar girl hopped along the pavement on her single bare foot. It was awkward and tiring, but she didn't really have a choice. She felt every single bystander's eyes on her, even with her head held down in shame. The young dark skinned girl's body was bare, she was wearing only a bronze anklet. Her right arm was amputated a bit below her shoulder, ending in a wrinkled short stump. Her left arm ended a few inches below her elbow with a similarly scarred round stump, she had her elbow slightly bent forward as she hopped. The leg she had lost, the left one, was amputated mid-thigh, the stitch marks from the amputation run across both the stump's tip and the inner side of her residual leg. Her left eye was missing leaving her with an empty eye socket, she couldn't close it since the eyelids were also removed. Who could blame anyone for staring at her? She could hear most of them whisper and some not even bothering to hide what a huge spectacle she was.

''Whoah, look at that gypsy girl!''

''Three stumps? What happened to her?''

''She's still good for a footjob though.''

''Is she also missing an eye? Damn.''

She expected those kinds of reactions, but actually hearing them out made her want to die out of humiliation on the spot. But she had to keep hopping around town to get at her usual begging spot.