The vacant field behind the housing development where they lived held more interest for the boy than all of the organized playgrounds that the city provided to keep the children occupied. The playgrounds, mowed and clipped and cleaned, were antiseptic areas where kids could do those things that the playground had been designed to allow. The vacant field was wilderness. There were no rules there, only those that had obvious and just penalties attached to punish violators.
The boy's parents merely counseled him at first. They told him that the playground was the safest and the best place for him to play. They looked meaningfully at each other when he replied that he preferred the field. You should play with the other children, his father said. But the boy found the other children dull and stupid. The games that they played had no purpose, other than noise and dirt as far as he could tell. The field held all sorts of wondrous things for him to explore and watch, and he never grew tired because it was impossible to see it all. There were so many new things occurring each day, that he felt as if he were entering a fresh world every day after school, and he hurried out into the field because he didn't want to miss anything. Later, his parents became more insistent and tried to make him stay out of the field. The gave him the choice of either going to the playground or staying his room. He chose at first to go to the playground, but after a day or two, he just stayed in his room and looked out the window at the field.
After a week of this, on night after his parents had fallen asleep in their room, the boy lay quiet in his bed, his head turned toward the window and the field. The moon was out and full and the light spilled in through the window and washed a large section the carpet. It was quiet in the house, but there were sounds out in the field, not loud or even of the sort that would attract attention, but they were there just the same, and they could speak to you and tell you things if you knew how to listen and to interpret their language. The boy lay for a long time after his parents had gotten quiet in the other room, and then he rose carefully from the bed and went to the window. It was a sight that took his breath away. The moonlight had changed the colors of everything, so that the tall grass was silver and black, and the huge willow tree up in the corner with the spring flowing from beneath its roots, looked grotesque and fearsome with its unfamiliar shadows. Out in the middle of the field, something moved, and the boy switched his gaze to that spot. The grass was shorter there where a grader had been brought in and scraped the roots out for some now forgotten reason. He stared at the spot for a long moment, but it was impossible to see clearly in the dim moonlight. He unfocused his eyes and moved is eyes off to one side, so that he see the spot slightly off center in his vision. He had discovered that this technique enabled him to see better at night. Then he was able to see the rabbit sitting motionless.
He had never liked to play with the other children. His inability to laugh at the things that amused them, caused him to be ignored at first, and later, as his strangeness became the object of their interest, just as a new item of playground equipment would hold their interest until the newness had worn off, they began to actively pick on him and make him the butt of their cruel games and taunts. When he refused to respond to even this form of communication, they became violent and attacked him with epithets and then blows and stone. He suffered this indignity until the other children grew weary of him, and moved on to other forms of entertainment. After that, he was merely an outcast and they didn't bother him except to taunt him occasionally just to keep him in his place, or when they were temporarily bored and in between amusements. He didn't mind so much after it got to that stage, for the did not seek their companionship, but rather much preferred to be alone. He liked it that way, and was one of those solitary souls who function best alone. That was why he grew to like and to prefer the field to the playground. The other children did not play in the field because because they were forbidden by their parents. Just as he was, but he found that parents do not watch their children constantly and it was easy to slip into the tall grass at the edge of the field and to remain in there out of sight for a whole afternoon without being detected.
His mother warned him to beware of snakes in the field.
No comments:
Post a Comment