What can I say about Nindo that has not already been talked about under these moving bridges?

Nindo was a lover of people, the greatest street kid to lay his head under the Sooney Bridge, and the coolest brother you could ever meet. His presence felt like you had paid to be there, whether it be with your attention or some pennies for Nindo to buy some glue. He gave you stories that always reminded you of his other stories. They were all linked somehow. I could go on to say that Nindo was a great story teller, though that is not really all he was.

Nindo was loved by everyone besides his own people, or at least that is how he felt. How do I know this? I was close to Nindo, he confided in me. He told me there were things he had to do that he had not done. This was the root of his agony, it was the bread without the butter. It was the only thought that made him sad.

“I can’t live my life like this Sunny, you know my brother he asks, ‘Where is Nindo?! ‘Where is Nindo?’ And my mama says ‘I don’t know where Nindo is’.

Sometimes he cried after saying this, sobbing while smoking his stompie. He said it kept him from going mad.

Nindo was from a tribe in Boredo called the Boredom people. He had escaped at the age of 8 and decided to leave his tribe behind in exchange for life in the notorious city. Boredo drove him mad, Nindo said it could drive any young kid mad. He had to return home because of cultural duties he had delayed for quite some time. If he delayed them any further, he would lose all his charm, his character, his beautiful stories. Nindo was nothing without his stories.

“Sunny, they can take my glue, they can take my boxes, they can even take my leftovers, but I would die without my stories!” he’d say.

The Boredom people believed in silence, they spoke once in the morning and a few words at night. Nindo told us that his people believed silence held the key to the world because nature had better things to say than man. Nature only said things out of necessity. Nindo made a lot of sense. The Boredom people believed the tongue held immense power that could only be used by those who sacrificed their right to hear. At the age of 10 you were given the option of choosing to speak or to forever listen. Listening was a choice the people gladly accepted but some knew there were things a person could just not hold inside.

It was a very rough decision for a young person and Nindo, after keeping silent for 8 years, decided to escape. His head was filled with all sorts of things he could not say to his mother or his brother Lindo, who was a year older than him.

It had now been two years and Nindo said he could never go back there, to total silence. Though he knew that he eventually would.

“When I go back there, what will I say to them? Will they even let me speak? But I must go home and listen to what the silence says; only it can tell the truth.”

When he left, he left without a word, fearing that talking would get him in trouble. The tongue had got a lot of people from the tribe in trouble. Those that could not hold it inside, the ones that felt words actually meant something; something silence could not explain. I felt for them. Nindo felt for them.

***

Tell us: How long would you go without speaking?