Sad Boy

In a small rose garden, a boy cried out for help, but his mother was too far away to hear him.

Rays of the summer sun caressed his tear-soaked cheeks as nearby childlike laughter began to drown out his anguished screams.

Who knew the ball pit was so deep and the balls were so heavy? There seemed to be no way out, and no one to help him escape. He had just given up home when he heard a soft irregular tapping in one corner of the pit.

"No way..." he whispered. He waded his way through the heavy balls until he reached the edge of the pit. It was a birdhouse. A living birdhouse. With a woodpecker beak. It was pecking the wall of the pit. "Are you trying to escape too?" he asked. The birdhouse ignored him.

Perhaps that's what life is... All of us, in one big ballpit, trying to escape. Alone and unsynchronized, yet united in our pursuit of the beyond, until we die and our children continue in our stead. The birdhouse and I shared no words, for we could not, and gazed beyond.