hNmR

Some things are too unreal to be unreal.

Once while I was out and about, making myself abundant in the greenery of the world:

I simply-- 

Forgot about you. 



I forgot about you, and I forgot about us, and I couldn't even remember your name.
I was watching a boy I never got to meet grow up outside. I saw him smile, I saw him leap over a creek, and I even saw him get his skin dirty and not give two hoots in hell about it. I watched him rummage through the leaves for hours. He was looking for something, as it came to be. This boy would leap through vines, destroy clusters of painful briar bushes, and with a bold yet lackadaisical curiosity, rampage through knee deep creek water murkier than a swamp. I noticed him, to my good fortune, before he noticed me. Carrying on about his gallant business in search of who knows what, really, and here and then bending down to examine something. He did this for hours.

I didn't bother him. 

Why should I? He wasn't bothering me. Besides, I was rather fascinated with idea of his quest. I actually began to dwell more on the idea of what a small child might be looking for out here in such a forest than the boy himself. I was brought back to the boy when I heard sounded like a very faint cry of surprise. It appeared he had found something, maybe not what he was looking for, but something none the less. He was, however, quite enthused with his discovery. He crouched down over his newly obtained collection and he contently looked at it for what surely too long for someone his age. He was VERY interested in, perhaps even fascinated with, this obje-

"Hey! What have you got there?"

Damn it!
I couldn't stop it from coming out.

I sure scared the s**t outta that kid, because he was f*****g GONE.
Whatever he had been holding hit the ground before I even had " Hey!" finished. 

I walked over to where he'd been crouching, and I looked over the area for a few seconds before I found a small wallet-sized picture of a girl who couldn't have been any older than him. She looked like a nice enough kid, blonde hair, blue eyes, typical little grin, and you know...whatever else makes small children seem like normal small children. 


I don't know what this picture was doing out in the forest that day, nor do I know why that little guy had liked it so much. Really, some times I wonder if that's what he had been looking for. I wonder if he knew that picture was out there somewhere, and he wanted it. Perhaps he'd let it escape his pocket on another adventure. Maybe the creek wasn't the only "stream" he had traversed. 

Initially, I guessed it was his from a previous trek through these woods, but I had the strangest feeling that it wasn't.The look on his face had been so...I don't know how to say it. For some reason though, I couldn't agree with the idea that he had ever seen that picture before. 

I looked at the picture a little more.

That little girl did look familiar. I put that picture right back down where I found it. He'd be back. He'd be back and he'd be happy as a f*****g kite in a sunny breeze. I like to think now I did that little guy a favor, but I don't ever really know, do I?