We too were young once

We were children at play. Sand in our shoes, balancing the teeter totters, making up games on the balance beams. The streets are empty that late at night. The moon shone down on us through a hazy gray sky. Three adults too stubborn to grow up, remembering what it was like to play. Without purpose. Without care. Like the way we want to remember our childhoods (before clocks and cellphones and long-term goals).


Yet as conversations meandered from swingset to monkeybars, I withdrew, aware of a gnawing inside me. An urge to ask the time.