Dystopia

Everyone has a past, chum. That's what I told him when he watched the ground trying to summon the courage to confess his darkest secrets. I shrugged as I took a drag of the crooked cigarette hanging from the side of my mouth. The kid couldn't have been very old, seventeen or eighteen at best. Times are tough and it's a dog eat dog world these days, I told him. There's not an innocent soul left who doesn't have something he's hiding.
The kid turned his large eyes to me dolefully. He obviously didn't want to tell me his secret, and really, I didn't care to know. I patted him on the shoulder and gave him a sideways smile. It's a'right, kid. Don't push yourself. I betcha I could hit your story out of the park with my own, or at least make the same grade. You know what the roots of the word dystopia are? Bad place. That's where we are, kid; THE bad place, and it's here on Earth. There's no changin' what's been done, chap. We just gotta keep lookin' forward and hopin' we can save our souls then. We fight to survive this hell, and you and me, kid, we don't have to do it alone. We can do it right, and maybe with a little help from lady luck, we'll make it right too.
The kid had tears in his eyes, but he violently rubbed them away on his sleeve and smiled up at me with a nod of agreement. Yeah, he said, that sounds good.