Grass

The hem of her pastel sundress is  fluttering in the wind. It isn’t  stormy, just windy enough to  unsettle the mundane nature of her  life, and softly, adding to her allure  by blowing charms into the  shimmers of her soul.

God has been kind enough today. The skies are set a brilliant, deep blue, clouds establishing their presence, but doing nothing to exemplify it. Beauty, they say, takes a million forms; sadly, most of them remain oblivious to our eyes and hearts alike.

Her slender legs, knee deep in the weeds, work their way past the lush green edge and reach the concrete. A strong rush of wind upsets her lustrous brown locks and her fingers end up tucking the strands back, behind her ear, a little hesitance, a touch of anticipation. She can’t stand still; the restlessness is building up with every passing minute.
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Off at some distance, two children, sit, cross-legged, by the stream. The girl child is nearly 7, the boy perhaps a year or two older. They carry little blocks of wood, a few pebbles and little blue-green spheres.
“No, don’t put that in the water!” says the boy to the girl, whose frail arms extend forward, holding one such sphere. Though she’s seemingly fragile by her looks, her hands are unusually sturdy, as she holds the object almost in contact with the water’s surface, ready to submerge it in.

With a quick flip of her cute head, the black of her hair falling over her eyes, she asks him, “Why not?”
“ It’s beautiful, look at it. It’s blue, it’s green. 

If you put it in, you never know how bad it could get.”

“But it will always be beautiful! “, she quips in.
He looks at her, half wanting to push her instead,
 in the water, the other half wanting to cling onto the sphere.
“ It’s not just that, what if bad things happen to it, in there?” That is all he can manage.
“Bad things don’t scare it, it’s strong, see?" And she holds her hand out for him to see.
“Yes, now give it back to me, I’ll take care of it, you don’t have to worry”, he says, stretching his fingers, in anticipation, aiming for a proper hold.


But being the little devil that she is, she snatches it away.


Giggling, teasing him, her eyes smiling, she whispers, “It will swim in the water and then go off to sleep.”
“ It can’t swim. It will die.” His annoyance is building up. But he takes a deep breath in, and now manages a look that says he’s nothing more than a little perplexed by her behaviour.


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Standing against a pillar on the roadside, she looks ahead, taking in as much as the place has to offer to her eyes. A 6-lane, deserted highway separates her from the vast expanse of fields on the other side. The sun nowhere to be seen, she looks at her watch. He’s an hour late.


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She’s still giggling and his face is now red with anger.
“It will die. Do you want it to die?” he asks her, a pleading edge to his voice.
“Maybe it will die, after all! “, she teases him further.

“Give it to me. I will keep it safe”, he mutters, through clenched teeth.
She senses his anger, drops the ball onto the grass and looks away, pretending to be busy with arranging the different logs.
He can almost hear the tears as they slip down her face and onto her pretty dress.
He picks up the little ball.

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The sun shows up, ready to move over the hills and sink into a sleep, for it is obliged to pay everyone another visit the next day.
To walk into the sunset, together, it was something she had longed for. But, with no signs of any oncoming traffic, her heart sinks. Still on the road, she tries to move and get the frown off her face.
A current of icy wind blows past her, and she realizes she isn’t well equipped to handle the cold. It’s time to return home.
She takes in a deep breath, also taking in the absolute, flawless beauty of the miracle she’s witnessing.
Hues of green, blue, yellow amalgamating in the gorgeous cover on the earth and a rich, vivid orange, flirting with a touch of crimson in the sky.


She lets out a sigh, his name on her lips, attached, unspoken and so loved.

With a heavy heart, she turns. But his arms find her, and then envelop her. His lips, barely inches away from hers.
He’s finally home. So is she.


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As they walk back together, they overhear a conversation.
“You know it belongs to us”, says a boy.
“I wasn’t going to throw it away”, mumbles a girl.
“I know. “
“And?”
“I’m sorry”, says the boy.
She giggles, again.
And smiling, he hands her back, not just one but all the spheres.