[trapped in a perfect world]
[bittersweet]
I remember the day our old and stuffy next door neighbors moved away. I was so happy just to see them gone, they would always yell at Max and me for 'crossing the property line' when we would play in the back yard. The window of my room faced my neighbor's spare bedroom, and occasionally they would have family stay in there while they visited. I would stick my pudgy face against the window and try to see if there were any children, but the same little old lady would always be there, yelling at me, pointing her finer and closing the blinds.
Now when I stuck my head out the window, it was empty. An unfurnished room with faded blue walls and faded wooden floors. I missed the color in the quilt that lay on the bed on the center of the room, it was bright and vibrant, and come to think of it didn't even match the blue in the walls. But it fit anyway, they balanced each other the way a good room should, and I guess I'm going to miss that quilt.
But one day a series of horse and carts arrived, not pulling people but tons of objects and pieces of furniture. They pulled up right next door, and a cycle of men carried the objects from carts into the house, disappearing behind the walls of the big brown domicile.
That day I took Max outside, and we played in our backyard, not caring about the stupid property lines and just playing as a boy and his dog should do, carelessly. It was summer then, and I sweated bullets underneath my knickers and bare shirt I had stripped down to. Max was panting like a madman but still badgered my to throw the ball as far as I could.
I decided one more throw, and I just had to go inside for lemonade, so I told Max it would be the last toss. I closed my eyes and wound up by spinning in circles, holding the ball out at arm length and getting ready to toss it in any which way. I released and straightened myself out to see where the ball had landed, regaining my balance and standing upright.
The ball moved through the air weightlessly and was headed in the direction of the new neighbor's house.
"Hey!" said a boy about my age as he ran outside to greet Max and I to see if he could play.
I should have seen it coming, but the ball dropped out of the air like it had chosen its victim, and smashed the kid in the face. He landed flat on his back on the ground; his arms and legs sprawled out in every which way.
"Hey kid!" I shouted after him and sprinted as fast as my ten-year-old legs would take me, and landed on my knees at his side.
His eyes stared blankly at the sky and I could see that he got hit in the eye judging by the bruise starting to form. He wasn't moving, he wasn't blinking, and he lay there with a bare expression on his face and his body limp and flaccid. "Kid, Kid," I said shaking him, trying to get him to move, to be alive, "Kid, please," I said starting to cry, starting to wheeze, "Kid, blink!" I started to shout.
Hearing me scream my mother came outside and sat beside me, both of us shouting, "Kid, blink!"
He started to squirm, but alas, he was alive! I hadn't killed him after all, thankfully. I was far too young to have taken a life, and plus, it was finally a kid who lived next door to play with.
Then his mother came outside, similar to my mother it seemed, but more poised. She looked at us and smiled, then looked at the ground next to us and turned into a jog.
Next thing I knew she had him in her arms, sprinting to take him inside so that she could send for the doctor.
The next day I sat on the steps leading into my house, feeling awful about what happened between me and 'Kid-blink' (as I had so cleverly been calling him), I sat there gloomily, and depressed. I decided that the only thing that would bring me salvation would be to walk over to the house, apologize and see how he was doing.
"Hello ma'am," I said respectfully to his mother, "I just wanted to check on him." I said bowing my head, trying to hide the tears dwelling in my eyes.
"Hello Mush," she smiled, and motioned me in. I saw my mother sitting in the kitchen of the house and I ran to her.
"Hey there Mushy-man," she said squeezing me tightly, "Tommy's down the hall on that side," she said motioning me to the door.
"Hey Kid," I said as I stepped in the door and saw him reading in his bed, but something was different about him. Same blond hair, same freckles, same crooked teeth, same eye-- same EYE! He was wearing an eye-patch.
"Hey," he said enthusiastically, his grin grew at the fact that he had a visitor.
"I'm Mush," I said holding my hand out to him, "I'm really sorry about--er--," I said motioning my chin towards his eye.
"No problem Mush," he laughed, "doctor said it'd heal right up," he touched it lightly, "and now I kinda look like a pirate."
"Hey, you're right!" I laughed, "Aye Aye Matey!"
"By the way, I'm Tommy," he said, his smile broadening.
"No, you're not," I said to him, my smile broadening as well. "You're Kid-blink."
He looked down at his book, and then looked at me unsurely, "OK, Kid-blink it is."
And from then on, we were almost as inseparable as our mothers were.