2/12/99




Playtime

By Candice D.



	
	
	Arnold Bennett once said:  "Any change, even a change for the better, is always

accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.”  Recently,  I discovered how true this was.  I

visited my childhood park at night.  This was the first time in a long time for me, everything

seemed so familiar, and yet so foreign.  The dark cloak that covered the sun changed this place a

great deal.  The colors, though loud and magnificent in the sun’s rays, were only like a subtle

whisper in the dark.  I slowly walked towards the playground with my friends, breathing the cold,

misty air in and out.  The freshly cut grass, with its sharp aroma, gave way to my rubber

sneakers as I walked.  The faraway basketball games and the occasional car zooming by were the

only sounds I could hear.  Or could it?  It seemed as if I could hear children laughing and

playing.  The playground was bare, though.  Maybe the sounds were just memories.  Maybe this

park has housed so much fun and happiness that it plays the sweet laughter when no one is there.  

	My friends and I decided to feel this laughter once 
again.  We grabbed onto the steel

bars that were as cold as a toy accidentally left outside in the wind.  We began to play as if we

were children once more.  We were in the playground, we were playing with friends, but

everything was different.  Physically, our bodies and voices had grown and aged.  Mentally, we

had learned many things through the years and gained more intelligence.  Perhaps this intelligence

was not worth the loss.  Emotionally,  we had learned through years worth of experiences and

challenges.  We were not the same people we were then.  We had changed too much.  It

saddened us.  We had lost our innocence, our childhood.  We 
lived it but once, and now it was

no more.  We slid down the slides, but they weren’t as long as we used to be.  I could barely

slide down the swivel slide because my legs were too long.  I stopped and looked around.  The

winds blew through my hair; it surrounded me and I closed my eyes.  

	That’s when I felt it.  My mind moved as fast as darkness takes over light.  For that

one moment, that one second, I relived my childhood.  I could feel the sunlight on my shoulders,

the wind blow around me, the sweat on my skin, and the dirt on my legs.  I felt my bones beat

down against the ground as I ran around the park with endless energy.  I could feel the laughter

escape me.  I could feel the exhilaration.  I saw the world through a child’s eyes once again. 

Unfortunately,  I had to open my eyes, and I saw the night again.  I saw my friends, my

teenage friends.  

	We had lost our childhood, our youth.  We were young now, but it wasn’t ever going to

be the same.  No matter how much we wanted to relive our childhood, it would never really come

back.  Just how our childhood had to end, our little nostalgic party had to end also.  We got up,

grabbed our high school backpacks, and started walking.  We left our childhood and walked home

towards our adult responsibilities.  Playtime was over.




Copyright Rainloverblaze Productions (Candice D./Candiland) 1999

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