She wandered along the lanes of her schizophrenic little town-city, dreaming about her future. A slight figure, her long skirt swaying in the breeze, she stopped to watch as a group of boys played a disorderly version of cricket in their oversize shorts and questionable looking shirts, having taken over a narrow lane between the two rows of nondescript houses - a lane so narrow that if she squinted, she could imagine that it was a tapering path leading up to a taller horizon than she had ever seen in her life. The game was fascinating to watch - tense yet graceful. Years later, she'd wonder why she remembered that scene so vividly. Was it the magic of seeing freedom being created within the constricted spaces of an ordinary life? Or was it the sudden and uncomfortable realization that it was only in the playing of games that life finds ways to stay rooted to its realities? She wondered then, as she continued to watch. At what seemed like the peak of play, one of the boys broke away, chasing a fleeing ball. His concentrated sprint slowing to long strides towards a girl lost in her thoughts, he stopped, mesmerized. The young, fortunately, never need learn how to love dreams.
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