Changes...

I sat in the same cafe, smoking a new flavour of shisha while enjoying me same ice cream flavour of choice- mango.
I admired the same Mediterranean sea scene I had often thought about back home...
Familiar faces surrounded me: the same cafe owner, the same janitor and the same waiters who'd served me several times on my last trip here two years ago. Admittedly, I didn't give it much thought. And then a familiar face passed by that forced me to pause and reflect...
It was that of a boy I also remembered from my last trip, walking down the street cafe to cafe (as so many others do), earning his bread by selling a load of overpriced "Made in China" goods. I remembered how he had etched his image into my mind being a kid so many years younger than me, out so late toiling in a fruitless job that probably earned his family next to nothing. I remember wishing I could buy his whole load of goods, a naïve thought my young mind had concocted.
I remember my parents trying to comfort me with glamourized thoughts of how he probably had lots of money and would return home to a big dinner.
But this boy walking in front of me, pausing every so often to readjust the heavy load, his tanned face hardened with new lines I didn't remember- giving him the appearance of someone beyond his years- was NOTHING like the protagonist of their fairytale...
I guess some things really do change, and some don't...