He stands barefoot on the edge of a tilted wooden dock, his ribs visible beneath skin bronzed by sun and silt, his eyes dark, watchful, more river than child. He wears no shirt—just a pair of old shorts, tied at the waist with string, frayed at the hem like everything here.
He is eleven maybe twelve. But in this part of the world, age is measured not in years, but in how many monsoons you’ve survived, how many mornings you’ve paddled out for fish instead of school.
He doesn’t speak—not to the tourists snapping photos from boat tours, not to the NGO volunteer who once tried to give him shoes, not even to his younger sister watching from the shade. He watches the world instead. Listens to it breathe.
He does not wave. He does not smile. If you look away, you might miss him or you might see him step softly into the shadows, and disappear into the reeds like he was never there at all.