Daydreams...

Now for something completely different...

I painted this when we lived near Kansas City, where it seemed the humidity was as thick as chiggers in August. I titled it August Afternoon, and here's a little story I wrote for it, though I must give Glenn, at Differences with the Same Likeness, credit for the last line.

Daydreams

She sure doesn’t look the way she did last summer, when everyone was at the water hole and all she did was sit there with her knees to her chest. Yeah, I used to tease her, but everyone did. She made it so easy, being that odd sort of quiet. Always to herself at the edge of the group, or her face in a book or drawing something. I didn’t mean to make her cry, with that bucket of frogs, and I sure didn’t think it would take a whole ‘nother year before she’d even talk to me again.

When Mickey Pritchard called her the boobless wonder, I should have punched his lights out. And I should have whispered her the right answer when Miss Whimbley called on her in front of everyone in math. Maybe I should’ve left a note with the valentine candy I put in her desk, or signed the picture I drew of her, with her pretty, long hair—the one she folded and stuck in her book.

I think she smiled at me during lunch, today, even though she wouldn’t show me what she was reading when I asked. Maybe if I happen to be hanging around the old hickory tree she always walks past on her way home, she won’t mind if I ride my bike beside her…

“Boy! Stop day dreaming, and get out and open the gate.”