The Age Of Innocence
A little blonde-haired girl.
Three years old.
Skipping sprightly across the stamped concrete as if she hadn't a care in the world.
I was sitting on the patio of St. Arbuck's (where it seems I've been spending an inordinate amount of time lately) with a friend discussing the cover design for my book and enjoying another beautiful morning.
That's two in a row...we must be nearing some sort of record for Las Vegas.
He was talking about the merits of scanning versus photographing the cover art, but my eyes were on that little girl as she approached the lip of an elevated stone planter box and glanced quickly over her shoulder toward a young man hovering protectively nearby.
I figured him for the dad.
Raising her perfect little eyebrows quizzically she pointed toward the planter as if to say, "Can I?"
The father nodded and said, "Just be careful."
"I will, daddy," came her excited reply.
And then, singing a nonsensical tune she pulled up a chair, stepped gingerly onto the stone surface and after a moment's hesitation began skipping around its circumference.
Naturally curly hair bouncing in rhythm she traversed that narrow pathway with all the skill and dexterity of someone who had absolutely no fear of falling.
She kept up a constant patter of conversation, although what was said and to whom was a mystery.
Someone entered my field of vision--it was another little girl.
This one was about five with shoulder-length brown hair upon which someone had expended a great deal of effort before leaving the house.
Walking slowly toward the planter box she stopped a few feet away and stared longingly at the other little girl's frivolity.
The girl stopped skipping and beckoned to her saying authoritatively, "You can come up here."
The brown-haired girl looked around as if seeking someone from whom she could gain permission and finding no one, climbed gleefully up onto the planter.
Before long the two were wholly consumed by a game of, "Let's pretend."
I heard the blonde girl say, "Let's pretend I'm a butterfly and you're trying to catch me."
And off they went, giggling in their little girl falsettos.
The whole scene was so pure, so carefree...so unspoiled that I was immediately carried away on the crest of a wave of melancholy as I thought about life and all they would experience; the potential that exists to spoil such innocence.
And I started wishing.
I wished a world for them that was free from partisan, political infighting, sagging economies, racial strife, religious extremism, nation rising against nation, famine and greed; a world where neither would have to suffer through the pain of divorce; a world where they would have the love and nurture necessary to grow into the women of destiny they were intended to be; where hunger, terror and disease are only things read with unbelief in history books.
A world much different than the one we have.
"So what if on the lower right corner of the cover you have a stain, like someone has spilled coffee on it? I think it'd be a nice, subtle reference to the title."
It took a second to tear myself away from my imaginings but I said, "That's a great idea. Sarah suggested a ring like someone had set a cup of coffee on it."
I didn't hear his answer for my ears were still attuned to the little girls enough to hear one say, "Let's pretend..."
And I thought, "Let's."
RG...out!
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