Playground

 

Playground

Watch the child run with elegant strides of grace, a beauty not compared to the girls and boys that surround her. She is so natural and simple in her world alone. Breaking from the others she strides and sits down on a root under a sturdy oak. The other children do not notice that she has left but she has and feels abandon. But that feeling doesn't last for long as she lifts' her face to the sun streaming through the beautiful canopy of green shaded leaves. The warmth of the rays dancing on her face in the cool breeze and brings her courage and feeling at home. 

Though she runs to keep up with the pack of other children she always slips behind, discarded and forgotten like a old toy that lost any use. She brings nothing to amaze the others on the playground. She is weak and lost in a open world, with no guide that she can see, to help her. In the end she waits and watches for her chance, mingling in and out of crowds. Testing the waters and diving in hoping, upon hope that she would find a place among the other children. What she finds does not last for too long. Faces and names are lost to times memory of what was. 

Wrongly punished she was taken away from the other children, every day throughout a year of school she stood alone. She has watched on the sidelines the playground and its children. Longing to have the chance she strove to do right, pushed till there was no fight left in her hands. Cried every timed she failed. But then she looked up and out to the sky and waited. When the clouds passed she lingered in the light, at home in peace again, even for the shortest of seconds made the difference. Those long moments of loneliness in the dark corners of an empty class room or standing against a cold, brick wall in silence shook her foundation of hope. But when the teacher's back was turned she would search for hope. The teacher could never stop her from moving her hands and feet. And in so her she drew pictures without ink or pencil. She used her foot in the dirt, her finger in the air and traced and drew the world around her. 

Then by surprise she found she had a talent. A new boy her age came up to her without her knowing and praised her drawing in the dirt. The teacher saw the two and broke them up from further conversation with each other. But as the teacher turned the boy away he winked back at the girl and turned and ran off. Hope is an amazing thing to have in dark times. And it shows up in many wonderful ways. To the girl this looked to her as if her hopes were going to come true, she was just not so sure how yet.