Garden

It was a garden. He stepped inside and made his way to an empty bench. The bench provided an excellent view of the garden's play area. Almost all the swings, seesaws and slides were occupied by children. There were children of all ages, some with their parents and some without. Looking at them, it was evident that they were all having the time of their lives. One was swinging as high as a bird, ignoring his mom who was constantly asking him to slow down. Another one was competing and trying to go higher on his swing.

There was a queue of anxious children on the slides, waiting for their turn. After every turn, they would go back and rejoin the queue. There was this particular small cute girl, who was with her mother. Every time it was her turn, she shouted “Mummy”, to draw her mother’s attention. Then with twinkling eyes she would slide down and laugh aloud as her mom clapped. Then she would rush back to rejoin the queue.

The seesaws were relatively empty. One particular seesaw had a small boy at one end and his dad kneeling down at the other end. The dad was using his hands to rock the seesaw. The child’s mom was feeding him some grapes, which he was nibbling unconsciously as he enjoyed the rocking. Up and down …ever smiling and eating grapes.

At one corner, there were two kids, who were probably brothers (since they had identical clothes on). They were busy digging a hole in the mud and making a castle. An elderly woman was guiding them (their grand mom probably). Both the kids were engrossed; the world didn’t exist for them. Their clothes were soiled with dust and mud, but they didn’t care. Finally when the castle was ready, they stood up, embraced each other and started dancing around it.

He smiled, as his loneliness vanished amongst these little angels.