tales for dreamers: the children are gone

All the children are gone.

No one can recall when they were last here, at the park. Last summer? Or the one before that? A decade ago, perhaps?

More likely a generation or two ago, the wizened old man says, and that is the truth.

The last of the lot grew up too fast, he explains. So fast that by the time they’d grown up, they didn’t have enough memories of their childhood to want to have their own children.

Even the ice-cream truck stopped coming aeons ago, he notes. 

But the slides are clean. The structures are devoid of rust and the cobwebs of disuse. 

Occasionally, the swing creaks in the middle of the night. Laughter erupts as the seesaw bounces up and down. There's a whoop of glee alongside the whoosh of a little body down the curvy slide.

But no one has spotted any children here in a long time. Whoever it is the old man hears must be a fiction of his imagination, he’s certain.

Because all the children are gone. Long gone.

And so have their ghosts.

Last week's image info: The magical place in last week's tale, 'this way up', is the sledding hill by the Centennial Bikeway across from Nelson Park.