The era of one’s childhood is a fleeting affair, time is too quick. It is the lingering taste of sweet orange juice, best served on the sunniest of days. If only another sip could settle the nostalgia. If only those pedestaled moments could be relived, for returning to their context presents no satisfaction. Trying to recreate the sensations, the sentiments, the warm wind that once caressed your pure skin is impossible. It has passed.
Closing the car door, the creak affirming its rusted presence, I looked up at a structure. It was a brick, surrounded by towering cedars. It was made of mortar and brick. It’s scattered green shingles shimmered in the suns rays. The cedars swayed, chanting in the breeze. As I inhaled the atmosphere before me, the soothing grass released its fresh cut fragrance deep into my nose. It was still I followed my mother, as would any timid primate being thrown into a new jungle. Hand in hand, she lead me across the gravel car lot, into that brick.
Beside me, she was standing. I could hear her words and the words of another I had yet to make eye contact with. Those noises were however, so distant, smothered by the white noise of a child’s perception. I was observing the other things. I supposed they were children. They did not behave as children did, they were loud, and rampant. They chased each other and screamed while constant liquid streamed from their nostrils. They could not have been children, they must have been spawn from some feral creature. I later learnt that they were children of the human domain, they became beings I associated with, boys I saw and spoke with everyday.
Closing the car door, the door continued to creak. I looked up at a brick structure. It was my school. The early morning air was as soft and tender as always, the trees greener as their pigment was coated with the aqueous product of rain. I ran to my tribe, a culture I had become assimilated into. I ran with my tribe, chasing each other, back and forth, our petit feet was cradled by the open sands of our kingdom, our playground. Holes would be dug, castles built, wooden structures scaled and conquered. We were wild chimpanzees exploring the depths of juvenile capacities. Fights would be lost, fights would be won, rules were broken, friendships lost, games were always played. We evolved together, we learned together. United we conquered the shining vinyl halls of our elementary school and it’s mildew perfume. It was a moist fragrance that nobody spoke of, an odour developed over a half century of abuse and dodgy inspections. That was our universe, that was the universe.
Closing the car door, I look up at what was once my school. It was five years since the closing of the 50 year old school, but it had aged two hundred. Green shingles had littered the ground before the roof. The triangular roof’s pointy form had been dulled and caved in, at the corners. Even the sturdy walls trusted to once sheltered young children, had crumbled at the slightest movement of earth. Overgrowth was laying siege to it’s brick walls, trying to penetrate through the broken glass. The cracked bricks were tattered with greenery. Not a single soul could be seen within its perimeter, it was a carcass lost in the woods. Once a prosperous kingdom, now a scene from post apocalyptic Cormac Mccarthy’s ‘The Road.’ The playground we once played in was no more. Only dust and fern remained, the once open sands were gone. The magic we could once experience had disappeared. The trees no longer chanted their joy in the wind, the smell of sweet cedar had turned sour.
After returning to my elementary school for one final time, disappointed in what I had found, I swore I would never return. All that once was, was lost, it was no more. I had come to the realization that one could never return to the great eras of the past. It may feel real, it may seem as though it was experienced just yesterday, but it hasn’t. Perhaps, the past is best left in memory.
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