Watching Children Play

I like to drink whiskey under the tree by the playground. It's poignant watching all the little kids running around. Screaming their little faces off. Pretending to be pirates, or firemen, or aliens, or gangstas. It's amazing to see how alive they are now, and to think of how dead they will someday be.

Not in some sick, or morbid fantasy. Just a solid, healthy realization.

That little girl on the slide. Car wreck.

The chubby little boy on the teeter-totter. Cancer.

Ditto for the boy on the opposing teeter-totter.

In fact, several will go from cancer.

The girl on the monkey-bars. Drug overdose.

That daredevil on the merry-go-round looks more like a suicide to me.

Sad? I guess. Hopefully I won't be around to see any of them go. I got my own schedule.

Speaking of which, I better get back my birthday picnic.

Cake is waiting.