It was one of those days, as boring and uneventful as any other. No brother or sister to play with, mom and dad at work as usual. My nanny too old and too tired to keep me occupied or to care. I sneak out of the house and take a brisk walk around the neighbourhood. I'd be back in no time even before the nanny could say little girl because she always managed to forget my name. As I look back I wonder if it was old age or dementia or she just couldn't be bothered to learn my name.
Somehow along the way I look up to see a blue rhombus shaped object flying up in the sky, and no it's not a bird and it certainly isn't superman and to my 7yr old brain this was a really intriguing phenomenon. I mean I certainly hadn't seen or heard of one of those. As my little feet followed the object like one of the Maggi would have followed the star leading to the messiah, my feet carrying me as fast as they could panting my little lungs out. I was flabbergasted. I mean never in my wildest dreams had I ever fathomed a shape could fly so high in the sky and it was blue. My favourite colour. Was this magic, was it a sign from God who we prayed to everyday. To me it was nothing short of a miracle.
While I tarried along trying to trace the origins of this "magic rhombus" my nanny had just noticed that I was amiss and she was really worried as my parents would be home any time now. She called out 'little girl!' over 10 times but no answer. She then remembered my name and called out 'Sheila' several times and still no answer. She goes to the neighbours to ask if they had seen me, the guards say they saw me walking along the path but didn't take it seriously as they thought I was following an adult or something to that effect I mean they couldn't be bothered by something this trivial much less if they weren't getting paid any extra money for it.
Plain little gleeful me was following the awesome shape like it was the eighth wonder of the world. As I came closer and observed the object, I noticed it was attached to a long piece of string and a little magician boy several shades lighter than me was controlling it.The string was wound onto a piece of wood which he adjusted accordingly. This was most definitely a divine being, an angel as we learned in Sunday school. But where were his wings? Could he have suspended them in the air using the piece of string and wooden handle. This seemed like a weird ritual and what peculiarly shaped wings he had. I was staring in utter disbelief. I'm sure I was drooling. He approached me, I'm sure puzzled by my reaction albeit. He introduced himself as Anil and asked who I was, fumbling I managed in a wisp breath to say Sheila. "Are you an angel I added and are those your wings up there?" Anil couldn't help laughing at my naivety. He explained that he wasn't a magician, angel or anything of the sort. He told me the flying object was called a kite and even I could fly it. He even showed me how to work the weird contraption and before long we were flying the kite higher than we imagined we could.
Later on that evening Anil's dad came to fetch him as it was getting really late. "Little girl ," he asked, "what's your name" Anil introduced us and told him of how I followed the kite because I had never seen one before and how I was really amazed by this flying contraption. Mr Surjeet, Anil's dad said it was really late and my parents were probably worried about me, he asked if I knew where my home was, but I couldn't remember since I had already walked a long way from home following the kite. He asked if I knew my parents cell or home numbers and luckily enough I knew mom's number by heart. We walked to their house which wasn't that far away and as soon as we got there he called my parents who were worried sick by now. He gave them directions and soon enough they came to pick me up.
Mom and dad were really grateful to Surjeet and Anil for looking after me and probably for not being a bunch of thugs or kidnappers who could have easily harmed me or held me for ransom. They went on and on about how worried sick they were and how they had called the police and made announcements on radio and T.V. Golly gosh I thought, so much ado about nothing. I mean I had the time of my life flying that kite and while they were fussing about my disappearing act I was relaying to them my experience with the flying contraption. Any way they managed to warn me about the security risk I had taken leaving home on my own without even informing anyone, how I could have been kidnapped, molested, defiled, tortured or even killed.
I promised never to do it again.
Soon enough mom was expecting a little sibling for me. As you can imagine I was over the moon with excitement and a few months down the road I had a bouncing little baby brother to cuddle, change nappies for and feed and play with. A few years down the road I was only too happy to show him how to fly a kite so he wouldn't have to learn the hard way they were not angel wings or a magic contraption. I will never forget the look on his face when he first saw me flying the kite it took me back to my days of naivety with Anil, and just like Anil had taken his time to explain this brand new phenomenon I did the same.
THE END
