Afternoon's Ending

The door slams behind Neil as he runs quickly from his house as if the hounds of hell were on his heels. He is a typical 5 year old constantly in motion. He woke early today and his mom was sitting in the Living room crying and rocking his baby brother. He knew as well as she that today was the day the men in uniform came knocking to tell her that his dad would never be coming home again. He thinks back and remembers her falling to the floor, holding her belly and crying begging those men to tell her it was a mistake. He became the man of the house that day.
A stray tear wanders from his eye and he quickly wipes it away. He reaches up and grabs the chain around his neck where his father’s dog tags lay. He is a miniature version of his father with his head shaved in the classic military cut. He is dressed as many young boys of the day with his favorite ripped blue jean shorts and his American flag T-shirt. He sports a scar on his left cheek where he fell against his mom’s humidifier in the middle of the night when he was two. And he has numerous scabs on his knees and elbows from the mischief that he always seems to find.
He hears a bark and looks back to see his black lab, Max running towards him, his faithful companion and best friend. Neil kicks at the dirt with his scuffed sneakers and watches how the dirt forms little dust clouds whenever he moves his feet. Spying an empty can, he began to kick it aimlessly down the road, laughing at the antics of his Lab chasing the can.
Becoming tired of this game, he raised his head and looked at the sky. The sight that met his eyes delighted his imagination. The afternoon sun was a huge rose-colored ball floating upon layers of yellow, blue, lavender, and red. The clouds looked like pink cotton candy. Some even resembled faces. “There’s a lion, and an airplane, and that one over there looks like a fish, and oh, that one looks like a hot dog.”
He leaves the road and puts his hands on his hips, proudly surveying all that is around him. He knows that his family owns all this land. His grandparents are buried with his dad in the family graveyard. He knows that one day all this land will be his and that makes him feel powerful. He looks across to the fields that are planted with corn and to the left of that is a field of wild flowers. “I know I will pick some flowers for momma, they always cheer her up.”
Boy and dog crawl through the storm drain to get under the new highway that his mother had forbidden him from crossing. She told him that the cars drove too fast on that new road and she made him promise never to cross it. He thought that since he was going under the road and not across it was not breaking a promise.
Leaving the ditch, he ran thru the wild grass to the field of flowers. Pulling the flowers up, roots and all, he managed to gather a good sized bouquet. Returning to the road, he broke into a run, occasionally losing a flower or two, and tripping over some unseen object.
For the first time since he had left that morning he noticed that he was hungry and he looked up to see the changes in the sky. The sun was hanging low in the sky and when he last had looked up it was high in the sky. He worried about what his mother would say if he was late for dinner.
Finally he reached the highway. Now all he had to do was get across the road, slip under the fence, and he would be home. He worried he would be late and decided to cross the road instead of working his way all the way back to the storm drain.
Clutching the flowers, he waited for a break in the endless stream of cars. His hands began to sweat as he saw the chance. After the red car, he decided he would go. Watching with anticipation, his eyes followed the red car as it whizzed by. Now the time was right. Starting with a leap, he dashed through the opening.
Sounds of screeching brakes and the squeal of tires brought all traffic to a halt. The flowers lay scattered on the road under the golden sky. While Neil lay on the ground with an eighty pound black lab sitting on him. Max had saved his life by tackling him to the ground. Neil knew then why his mother had made him promise never to cross that highway and he swore to himself he would never try to do that again.