Summer with Vivian

Vivian,
Sometimes I wonder where you are.

Today I remembered those warm sunny days,
Our endless summer vacation,
Two eleven year olds on our blue and red bicycles,
With wide open smiles, like our pure white hearts.

The roads were wide too, quiet and Serene.
Unexplored and rolling up and down,
New roads, by-lanes, and muddy back roads
Posed no challenge for young hearts and legs.

Our summer was busy and exciting
Nimbly scaling walls of abandoned houses
Peeping through stained dusty windows and cobwebby corridors
Holding bated breaths and jumping at imagined ghosts
And then running away finally
Hearing the beat of the watchman's stick.

Finding innovative ways to make hibiscus oil
Making new games with sticks,stones and leaves,
Reaching home giggling and dirty to find to our great joy
Two tiny little kittens, pawing at each other
Green eyes peeping from under rags in the backyard.
Sheer delight, Happiness, pure bliss.
We knew nothing, yet had everything.

Gang wars with the rowdy boy around town
Bicycle races down the block.
Setting up mock vegetable shops
With French beans collected from the ground
near the neighbourhood vegetable stall.
Being caught and then driven away
Laughing and running away in glee.

Vivian with his never dying smile and sense of adventure,
Vivian with his April Fool's practical jokes,
Vivian with his mother who died of asthma,
Vivian my hero.

"Vivian left last night" Mom said one morning.
"No! No way Vivian would leave!" I laughed,
"You fell for one of his practical jokes!" I scoffed.

I went to his house, knocked on his door,
A quiet lonely silence answered me back.
I went around the house searching for his bicycle.
And all that stared back was an eerie emptiness.

I took my cycle and went to the vegetable stall,
the book club and the road behind it too.
I searched for him for hours in the sun.
No, he wasn't there, or here or there too.

The sun was beginning to set
It started to rain and it suddenly got cold
and easily and without warning, the tears started flowing.
My knees started shaking and I couldn't pedal any longer
And then it finally sunk in. He had actually left.

I reached home softly wailing
at the sadness and finality of loss
Those emotions were pure too
Just like our past joy and glee.

Like a beautiful ephemeral dream, our blissful friendship had ended
Abruptly and painfully, the summer ended too.
Vivian had left our community, his dad had got relocated,
And nobody thought of telling the 11 yr old kid next door.

But Vivian, I still do wonder,
Where you and your mischievous smile are,
But wherever you are, I still do hope
That you remember me and that Summer.