A summer breeze's shadow

Her little feet were dangling down the stone wall, while she supported the weight of her body by leaning backwards and resting her palms on the stone structure. The setting sun looked as if it was giving her little pats on her head, but she didn’t notice the warm strokes. She was looking at the other children on the playing-field. They were playing a game, where the guys had to chase the girls and tag them. If they had tagged every single girl, roles would turn and the girls would have to chase the guys. It was a fun game.

A passing wind lifted her hair, energetically throwing it around her small face before it grew bored and went to play with something else. The girl had a little sad smile on her face. The other kids wouldn’t ask her to play. They never did.

It was a remarkably soft, warm day for the time of the year. She wasn’t wearing a jacket, and her feet were set in little sandals. Her heels kept tapping against the platform, on an invisible melody all children seemed to know. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot. It didn’t hurt her feet. She didn’t feel anything, besides the piercing sadness of being left out. It wasn’t as if they bullied her, they just ignored her.

She closed her eyes, and saw how everything turned into a field of red. She thought how weird it was that the color was red, instead of black. Violet spots would come up at random, but they would vanish before she could focus on them.

A boy ran past her, almost touching her while he ran by. She didn’t move a muscle. He wouldn’t touch her anyway. She opened her eyes again, looking at the tiny flies that were nearly invisible in the setting sun. They looked like little clouds of dust, but you could tell they weren’t because of their directed movement. They swarmed from one side to the other, collectively knowing how to move and where to go. Small leafs were falling from the trees, not letting their first step to a certain moldy death discourage them. They were elegantly floating in the air, like a battalion of little boats that had gained wings.

One adventurous leaf was sailing towards the stone platform she was sitting on. It seemed to hover in the air for a split second, before it sailed right through what she remembered as her body. The little girl didn’t notice. She didn’t notice anything but the small group of children playfully laughing and running around. She smiled, as her feet kept tapping. Right foot, left foot.

Right foot… left foot…