I saw Billy
October 30th 2007 01:22
Look, I know all the kids in this area. I've been the neighborhood babysitter since I was 12. That makes it 8 years. These kids call me Auntie. I'm invited to their every birthday party. I know all the kids in this neighborhood, believe me.
So this kid with his back to me, he didn't look familiar. I was thinking he was a visitor to this little suburbian heaven, but none of the kids were paying him attention. Poor fella. I remember what it was like to be ignored by classmates and sandbox non-playmates. At least he's not getting a bucket of sand dumped on his head.
I was drawn to him, fascinated. I was fighting the urge to look for his parents and tell them I babysit. The extra cash would pay for gas when I go to Mexico with the girls.
He's playing in the sand with his head bent. I still couldn't see his face. Little Bonnie was right beside him, but she's focusing her attention on her sandcastle. This was unlikely. Bonnie was the most amiable of children in the playground and she always took a liking to newbies. She should have been asking him his favorite color by then.
I stepped out the building and walked towards the playground. Screams of Auntie filled the air as several little ones gave me a group hug. I laughed and told them I couldn't breathe, and they unwillingly untangled themselves from me. I stared at the little boy in red, his head still bent down.
"Who's the little boy in red, Bonnie?" I asked the girl as she pulled on my braids.
Bonnie tilted her head at me and pointed at a scrawny kid climbing the monkey bars. "Jason?," she giggled. Jason was in a red sweater. "Jason monkey!"
"Yes, Jason. How about the little boy in the sandbox?," I smiled, nodding my head in that direction.
Bonnie looked at the play area and looked at me with a puzzled expression. "No little boy there, Auntie. You crazy." She giggled. She pulled my braids one last time and then ran to the monkey bars to play with Jason.
No little boy?, I wondered. He was right there. I carefully took a few steps towards him.
"Auntie! Crazy!" Bonnie shouted from a distance, then broke into giggles as Jason echoed her.
"Hi," I said, approaching the little boy in red. His knees were buried in the sand, and he still wouldn't look up. I was a foot away from him and I knelt on the sand just like him.
His fingers were bone-thin, his arms riddled with scars and bruises. But I wasn't staring at his skin. It was his shirt. Up close, it was white. And the red from afar, was a deep, deep red of what looked like dried blood.
He jerked his head up. His mouth was stained with black, his cheeks sunken and his eyes, his irises were a bright red color.
I gasped.
"Billy," I whispered.
And then he disappeared.
My ride came, but I was stuck in the sandbox, unable to move. I knew him. I knew that little boy in the red shirt. I told you. It, he, was right there.
*****
Who is Billy? Who was narrating this story? What was her relation to Billy? What's your story?
Prompt inspired by photo, by Ricciardi.
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Comment by Tracy
Movies and Life
I don't know what my story is as I'm in reading mode, but I really enjoyed reading yours.
Tracy
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or something.
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