If You Remember, Never Forget Me

Click, click goes the showman’s stick, as he tracks across the sand. It patters about him as he taps again and again with his walking cane, watching the grasses flow out to the sea. His back is bent. His legs shake as he moves. His face is worn and wearied, like the mottled cliffs that rest behind the dunes.
And the bounding boy, with his red balloon, runs along the rushing current of the sea, splashing and yelling through the waves. His smile frames his youthful face, his teeth flashing, perfect white, his short blonde hair flapping from his fringe to fall rakishly about his forehead.
And above them all, towards the dunes, a kite snaps in the roiling breeze, tugging on its invisible string, bound to a young girl, far off in the sand, who watches it carefully cartwheel in the salt-sea air. But then the rope breaks, and the kite, freed, wheels up and out into the clouds. And a tear breathes on the young girl’s cheek.
And the bounding boy bounds up to the girl, and he gives to her his brilliant red balloon, like a blooming rose of a moon in the sweet-blue sky. And the girl laughs, and her tear slides away; forgotten.
And high on the dunes, the old showman breaks, and tears rake his waxen face. His mind falls back and, as he sees the good exchange of youth’s fair gifts, he remembers a noontime, so far in the past, when a young, young boy gave away his twirling kite, and she could give nothing back, except a smile. And so, high on the dunes, the old showman turns his back on the sea, and throws this stick aside, to rest amidst the flowing grass.
And from the sea-shore, far below, an old, old woman flies a kite, watching it twirl in the waxing breeze, like the dream of a broken mind. Or sunlight on a waving red balloon.