I kick a can down the quiet street.
The windows bear down on me like my parents’ ever disappointed stares.
Another kick and the discarded can rolls – like my dreams – away from me and into the drain.

Letting out a sigh I drop my rucksack, which previously seemed to be getting heavier by the second, onto the pavement beside me. In the lamplight my silhouette contorts into the beastly shadow my mother beleives me to be.

I dig my hands into my pockets to shelter my increasingly purple fingers and feel the crisp crunch of paper against my palm. Pulling it out my eyes widen as it dawns on me. Twenty dollars!

$3 for a sandwich.
$10 for a night in a hostel.
$5 for five unanswered phone calls home.
$1.50 for a cheer-up chocolate and tiny can of Coke.

And the last fifty cents? I know exactly what I will spend it on and walk into the launderette and eye up the flashing machine in the corner. Pushing my last coin into the slot I pray for a miracle, and my jaw drops as the third seven clicks into place.