June Flash Lit 5 - Back When It Was Easy Breezy

The sound of the laughter is the same, but it springs from something different now.  I am old.  My hair scraggles on my shoulders where it used to wave.  I feel lucky to have that much, and the white pebbles of teeth between my jaws.  When I walk along the river, the girls still wade in the shallows, their bare feet splashing water up their slim, childish thighs.  I sigh sometimes, and they look up and laugh at the old scarecrow of a man.

Time was, they would smile at me.  Sometimes they would condescend to talk with me and I could weave them a tale, a tale about how enchanting they were and how they were enchanted, how they met puzzling and fascinating creatures and went on adventures.  The bored nannies in the background would glance up from their phones to see that no one was drowning or getting kidnapped before returning to swiping left.

When the girls panted to know more, I would pause.  “Let’s ask if I can take your picture,” I would say.

The nannies didn’t care, as long as they didn’t have to do anything.  (I still take lovely photos, but models are harder to come by.)  I would spin the tale and capture their faces, their sweet, tiny hands, the delicious curve of their lips.  When the nannies finalized their dates or it was time for lunch or piano lessons, I would show them a few of the photos and offer my card, in case the parents wanted any of the shots.

When the mothers called, and it was always the mothers, I invited them to my flat to select the ones they liked best.  The girls, now brushed up and tidy, would trail behind, shy now that they were away from the breeze, the ripples.  The shyness vanished in the face of my wondrous toys, the stuffed rabbits, the tea sets, the gossamer tent of caterpillars preparing for their transformations.  I spoke to the mothers, but my eyes followed the girls as they rifled through the puzzles and games in the cabinets.

I offered more photos, costumes, scenarios, and often glimpsed a bare shoulder, a flank, the lovely smooth perfection as the girls changed.  It was electric, transformative.

Now, in winter, I wrap up to ride the train into the city.  I bring cards, but the girls I see are as likely to scatter them to the wind as to watch my sleight of hand.  “It’s just an old man with a pack of cards,” they say.