Kite

As a willow tree weeps into the swollen river, a boy upstream falls
into the water. He was flying his kite and forgot to keep his eyes on
the ground. His thoughts were 20 feet up in the air, shining red, bold
and joyous against the blue sky.

Panicking, arms flailing, his body is swept downstream by the current.
The kite string is still in his hand and as the boy is dragged by the
river, the kite flies above him. A cheerful beacon for a drowning
boy.

No one is around to appreciate the kite, nor fear for the boy.

Except for his mother, who, sitting spooning mushy food into the mouth
of her baby one mile away, is caught short by her own heartbeat. She
stops feeding the baby and no longer shushhhss her whining toddler, but
is still. Eyes wide and shiny, she stares straight ahead of her, seeing
nothing. Cold, motionless and feeling sick - the smell of clammy
carrots hits the bottom of her stomach and in the kitchen she
wretches.

The boy struggles in the water, the kite flies.

But as the mother stands up, as the bowl of food falls from her lap to
the floor, as the dog gratefully moves in to the rescue - lapping up
the spilt baby meal -
- when all is as if in slow mo -
And her ears ring
And her heart pounds ever louder inside her chest
And the sound of the dog licking the now empty bowl crashes around the
room, the boy is swept into the willow branches, and they enclose
him.

Weakly, he catches hold of the branches and when he does this he lets
go of the kite string. The kite flies off, upwards: a sky-high beacon
for the lucky-escape boy.

And the mother at home stops feeling cold and notices all at
once:
The dog and the bowl;
The baby crying;
The toddler whining;
The mess on the floor;
And also the kite, in the distance, alone and confident in the air,
dancing.

And when he gets home the boy sees his mother and tells her 'I lost my
kite' and his mother says 'no, it got blown up here. It is stuck in the
beech tree. See!'

And the boy shivers, and the mother too -
And the babies watch them.

And the kite flaps in the tree, as the boy bathes, as the mother
attends to her youngest -
As the willow tree weeps.