Awakened by the leaves; scurrying aimlessly on the cobblestone streets. I pull myself out of bed. There are children in the streets; running about, laughing. They wear light coats, because the air has grown cold, and nip’s at their soft tender flesh. Already their cheeks are bright pink with freshness. While it only sinks in through my skin now; chilling the bones, with its gnawing numbing teeth. How envious one such as myself can get over children.
Those bright shining faces. Their eyes squinted up in upside down crescent moons, as their jaws are open in large smiles, grins, and bellowing out laughs. No matter what, the children laugh. They laugh through the cold months of winter. They laugh as they dance and run in the snow. They laugh as they play with snowballs, and throw them at each other with playful malice. They laugh as throw themselves into snow banks, leaving a bodily mark. They giggle over hot chocolate, that they drink from mugs, as they sit by a fire, with blankets covering their shoulders, warming their frost touched faces, pink cheeks, and red noses. As winter begins to thaw, they hurry outside again, in less thicker jackets, and look for the birds, watch the flowers, and grass sprout up. Little girls go out making mud pies. Their grandmothers give them shaved coconut, as they decorate their little brown sloppy pies. One busily makes an outline of a heart. Another makes a smiley face. While another sprinkles hers randomly, and says that her mud pie is the earth and the coconut is the snow from the clouds. The other girls laugh. Once the finishing touches are placed on their mud pies the girls quickly wash their hands. Then out they go searching to find the boys.
The boys are on the banks of the creek. They are throwing mud at each other like dirty pigs or monkeys. They laugh their high shrill laughs, as they get splatted with mud, and dare to toss the mud back. They laugh splashing in the mud. The sinking and the sucking of the liquid like earth rising around their rubber boots brings them great thrills. Then the girls came, marching like mothers or grandmothers or better yet wives. They did their best to swing their young little hips, with their hands on them. A sense of wife like arrogance that they had seen from their mothers, was evident on their face. All the boys dropped all the clumps of mud in their hands. They knew full well that it was improper conduct to throw mud at the girls. Fathers punished a lot harder when a boy hurts a girl. The girls all demanded that the boys come try some of their mud pies. It was the least they could do since they had worked so hard on the pies. The boys all got out of the mud in banks at the creek, and followed the girls back to where there mud pies were.
Their rubber boots squishing on the frozen dried out grass, as the mud clung to every step they made. The girls all walked a head of the boys giggling to each other. Giddy that the boys would try their mud pies, after they had worked so hard on them. They reached the mud pies, as they had left them. Each of the boys picked up one of the “utensils,” that the girl’s had left them – which were really twigs from the budding tree’s and branches, that they had saved through the winter. Each boy picked one of the twigs up and scooped up some mud. All the girls quickly turned around giggling to each other. While the boys, quickly tossed the mud over their shoulders, and made sounds of enjoyment as they pretended to act like they had eaten the mud pies. Each of the girls turned around giggling and ran towards one of the boys, planting a kiss on his muddy cheek. All the boys roared in disgust and ran away. The girls sat back laughing and giggling as they waved in the delight of watching the boys run away.
Summer would finally come. The school bell would no longer toll until later summer early autumn. The children felt a sense of freedom. Though they barely knew what the word freedom meant at being, able to run free in the green grass, listen to the bugs humming, birds chirping, and play from the morning until the evening. No jackets were required now, as the boys and girls all ran outside. The boys in short sleeve shirts and shorts, while the girls wore the summer dresses that their mothers informed that they had to wear. Some accepted this humiliation of being a girl, while others, fought tooth and nail, before their mothers gave up and let them wear their trousers or shorts. There boys and girls run free and play. They play war. The men being the soldiers, some of the girls their wives, and some the nurses; while some demanded to be soldiers as well. They would catch bugs. Butterflies were the most frequent. Each one would catch a butterfly and place in it, a jar. They would then take them home. Their mothers would pride them on such amazing catching skills. Then as the children slept, the butterflies would die. The mothers then would quickly dispose the corpse. When the children awoke, they would ask where the butterfly went. The mother would tell them, that the butterfly is no longer there anymore, because it has left and is once again dancing in the air. The children accepted this as the butterfly’s fates. On fortunate days, the children would blow bubbles from water and dish soap. They would watch the colourful orbs flat in the air, and then pop, each time they would giggle and blow another just to watch. Each child though lives each day to the extreme, using every second and minute; they fail to realize the time that is escaping them. Before they know it autumn has reared its head.
Yet autumn doesn’t damper their spirits. They still run and play. They throw in the leaves in the air, to watch them fall once again. They laugh they run and they play. They enjoy the company of each other. They enjoy the friendships that they have. Oblivious and ignorant to everything around them even life itself.
The children’s laughter and play is soon drowned out by a new sound – or rather an older sound to my ears. The long dull thuds of the logs of wood being hit with axe. One by one the axe man takes the axe in both hands. Lifts it high above his head, and then unleashes his entire amount of fury on the log in large powerful swings. Some logs break in half with one swing, others take two, some three, and others take more than four.
Who is chopping I wonder. I look at the man, a tall large, burly man. Must be Jack’s grandson I tell myself. For it is too young to be his son. I watch as the grandson of Jack places another stump of a log on the chopping block. Grabs the axe with his hand, and then picks it up and takes a swing once more. The metal of the axe, the weighted down blade, go deep into the core of the log, but does not cut it in half. He rises the log up once more to strike it again, to make that dull thud of a sound on the wood.
All I can do is turn away and, think about the oncoming winter. It’s beauty of the purity of the snow, and the gentleness of the snowflakes. And the peaceful sleep it brings.
(This story is Copyrighted and the sole property and ownership of "The Bird Cage," and M. Mary)
