aerasio

A Walk in the Park of the Past

We took a walk after lunch, a lazy stroll in the breezy early afternoon. Golden sunlight filled the lushly covered streets around hamline with a warm orange glow... interrupted now and again by the passing of small fluffy clouds.

I pointed out one, remarking on how pretty it was. "It looks like a whale" she replied, "thats the kind of thing we used to do as kids" she said, after a pause, smiling as she said it.

We arrived at a park, observing a pack of elementary school students bound energetically into the rolling expanse of grass and trees. She caught sight of a squirrel and attempted in vain to capture it with her camera. The rest of us looked on in mild amusement, and then started offering unhelpful suggestions. The squirrel ignored us and scampered up the tree, out of sight behind the shelter of green leaves.

We watched the children play soccer, sitting around on the ground of the park whilst the elementary kids ran up and down the park kicking a small white soccer ball. Every so often, a kid would kick the ball between the tree and red cone that marked a goal, which would invariably be celebrated by half the children present in a joyous display of cheers, upraised arms and wild jumping...

"I envy them. I wish I could go back to that age" she said, "back then, I could do anything I wanted, swim in the river, get dirty, and nobody would mind." She sighed, and I nodded in agreement.

After awhile, a grey-haired teacher blew a whistle and ushered the younglings back into the nearby elementary school...

A cloud promptly covered the sun, as if marking their passage from the park. They left a cold silence in the park, a certain emptiness among the green, swaying trees...

We walked back to campus after that, and turned our minds back once more to things of the present... trudging once more toward the untrodden wilderness of the future...

So said Aerasio at 23:21