Summer of love

Mr Saunders had spent the last 40 years writing the individual letters of the American Constitution on to rice crispies. He was highly patriotic and of course quite mad, from his writing desk could see down on Central Park across the road.

In the Park sat on a Bandstand a teenage boy sits solitary contemplating his fate. He couldn't believe he failed all the entrance exams to the various Ivy League universities to which he had applied. There looked no way out from avoiding the draft now, he had well and truly failed. It wasn't going abroad or the prospects are being killed that bothered him so much, more the prospect of leading a fruitless life. He wondered what his ambitions should be, whether he should just go down and throw himself in the River. It was a warm day in the middle of summer quite an odd time to be feeling so melancholy. All kinds of different crowds gathered throughout the park, families feeding the ducks, an old lady being dragged round by 15 various sized dogs and a group of hippies sat smoking down by the Riverside.

Near the River the hippies were sat on a huge megalithic rock, a group of about six of them. Three boys and three girls, they were passing around a bottle of whisky in their small huddle. Tom was still sat on the Bandstand his arms wrapped around his legs staring down at the ground. He hadn't noticed that one of the hippy girls start making her way towards him. “What are you doing here all alone” she asked.” Not really sure “he replied trying to hide the tears from his eyes. She was a pretty redhead about his age may be a few years older. She wore an army jacket, who’s is that asked Tom. “It was my brothers” she said he's dead now” this is all I have left of him”. My name is Emily what’s yours? I am Tom. Do you want to join us? Tom really wanted to be alone but there was a kindness in her voice and an obvious attraction between them he could not ignore. Sure why not he replied.

Tom sat silently with the others slowly taking a swig from the whisky bottle which had been passed to him. The others sat and chatted about records they had bought, festivals they dreamed of going to, and long laid plans of hitchhiking to San Francisco. They had been sat there for hours and the sun was going down over the heat haze of the city. It was a balmy night, and Tom was more relaxed than he had in years, he now failed to see if there was any real merit in formal education or military service,these people where happy without need of such institutions.

"We are going to a bar" Emily said "do you want to come"? They headed a long main street with the sounds of the jazz bars fading in and out and tunes from Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix records echoing down from high story windows. Emily clutched at Tom's hand she pulled back from the rest of the crowd “I don't want to go to the bar they are heading to”. Just then she kissed Tom and he forgot what had brought him to park in the first place. He put his arms round her and they walked on to find some random bar that they had never been to before. Tom would never know but the events of that day saved him from turning into a mechanical man with a defined purpose and a slowly diminishing soul.