Before the apple

The toddler sat next to him, “Dragon Queen” sung by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs plays in the headphones of the man glancing over to the toddler, he flashed a brief and friendly smile, though short a glimpse, he notices something, the look of innocence shows in the deer like eyes of the toddlers’. So innocent and so brown. He felt a light touch on his lap, he looked over, it was the toddler smiling at him, he returned the smile, and the thought dawned on him, how lucky this child was. “You have no idea how easy you have it huh? enjoy it while you can because this life is a struggle”. Were the thoughts running through the mans’ head.

At the age of 27yrs, he has lived through a great deal of life and was weary of the everyday battle, the constant worrying of how would he pay the bills next month, what will happen when he can’t get the apprenticeship he wanted, what will happen with him and his boyfriend. The toddler stood up, holding his mothers’ hand, he once again touched the knee of the young man, breaking him away from his thoughts, his smile to the young man was filled with such cheer, hope, innocence, and the young man wondered if he would ever get to a happy ending he so truly searched, and have been fighting for.

Admiring the toddler slightly jumping around in his light blue wellingtons, his mother stood there in idle gossip with a blonde haired woman who also had a baby lying in a pram. The young man wondered if he too should buy himself a pair of wellingtons, dark blue perhaps. Though rather expensive, he thought it might be worth buying himself a pair someday, for the rainy and snowy weather. He remembered growing up, and how unusually big his feet were, he saw the other children in his class at school wearing fancy shoes with lights and Walt Disney drawings, while he wore his black shoes with purple stripes. He envied the children and how they ran about at playtime in their shoes, shoes fit for children, not like his plain and uninteresting pair.

This he has remembered until today, his shoe closet at home filled with more than 20 pairs of shoes, all a different assortment of colours and designs, red, green, grey, paprika orange were some of the colours. Just one of his battles he had to win slowly. There was a time when he wore shoes that were a size too small and would hurt his feet, he would cry whenever he had to put them on, he only had one pair through the years of him working and buying shoes on sale in stores, he got them one pair at a time. Being currently unemployed he knows that he won’t be able to afford any new pairs soon so he would have to make do with what he has. The toddler in his mustard yellow chino and cadet green parka, continued playing at his mothers’ side, smiling away at the old man who has now taken a seat next to the young man. “your mother should teach you, not to meddle with strangers”. thought the young man. All the while admiring such innocence displayed by the toddler.

How he wished to have such innocence and hope for his future, as he looked out the window, the song was finished, “Hysteric” would play next, the bus stopped and the toddler got off with his mother, he thought not of looking back to the young man or the old man, his attention span not focused, the young man came to a theory that the toddler must be an only child, and was just looking for someone to play with. Still, the innocence shown by the toddler won’t be forgotten by the young man, he hoped that one day he too can feel as happy as the toddler looked.