Never Coming Back, by Tess Wenderski

Once upon a time, in an open field, two children collapsed to the ground after playing an exciting game of tag. The dust that had been stirred up from their running feet was beginning to settle. It was quiet and peaceful. The children were alone and safe.

The children were young, the boy about 8 and the girl maybe 6. They looked similar enough to be siblings, and they still had the energetic faces of children who have kept their innocence. They didn’t have a single care in the world. These were not the prince and princess of a fairytale; they were just kids enjoying some time away from home.

 

They didn’t have any worries or fears for the future; they were entirely too young to think about anything but the current moment. The present was enough for them.

As they lay there, catching their breath, they talked about the silly little things of children that hold all the importance of the world for them. Things that adults could never understand. The children were best friends and hadn’t been exposed to the hate of the world. They held love in their hearts as easily as their parents held them in their arms. Life was simple and easy to navigate. The biggest question of the day was whether to play tag or hide-and-seek.

It couldn’t last, though. After a little while, the boy’s mom called his name and he got up and ran to her. As he looked back, the field that he had been playing in changed. There was a wire fence that stretched around everything he could see. Buildings stood in rows, and weeds grew between the structures. People walked around the field and between the buildings. They walked with the slow, committed steps of people who had given up. The girl was gone; there was no sign of where she had once lain.

“Did you have fun today?” the boy’s mom asked. She had eyes that looked like a glass that had just been emptied of water; there were still a few drops of hope left, but not enough to fill her.

“Yes, we played tag all day,” the boy answered happily.

The mom smiled sadly. The boy had answered similarly for the past year, even though he had been playing alone for the past month. For a month, the boy had been quietly ignoring the truth that stared him in the face every time he stared at the girl who wasn’t there. For the past month, he had kept his innocence as his only playmate lived in his imagination.

For the past month, he had been playing with a girl who had gone to take a shower and had never come back.