The Person From The Future

A hopscotch

I sat in my desk chair. It was Saturday, the eighteenth of July, 6:15 am. My eyes were glued to the pavement across the road. The 'fun hopscotch' the neighborhood kids had drawn on the paving stones was faded due to yesterday's rainfall. It was still noticeable, although the green numbers looked pretty much the same as the blue numbers.

I had seen children and adults alike walk, jump, turn, and twist over it. Doing spins and going backwards where the instructions told them to do so. It didn't look like any of the simple hopscotches I used to line down on the pavement. It was fun to look at, though: how adults also felt the need to jump in the colored squares; how children put in that little bit of extra effort, making big jumps trying to show off how good they were at it. I had even seen a kid trying to get their dog to do it, too. The poor animal had no idea what was going on, but apparently it was trained well. It didn't jump, but did do roll overs when the directions told them to turn around. It came close to the real movements one had to make.

Even though it was early, the sun was already warm on my skin, the cold breeze from weeks ago had changed to a bit of a warmer one. Still cool, but not enough to cause goosebumps anymore. It was pleasant.

It wasn't too long until my eyes caught a familiar figure with a familiar obnoxious bicycle. They were delivering the mail as usual. They looked up, looked up at me, at me who had looked at the hopscotch just a few minutes ago. Their eyes seemed to trace my stare. When they caught sight of the hopscotch, they flashed a smile, dropped their bag down on the pavement and stepped around it, trying to find the start of it.

For a moment, they stood there, looking at the words and arrows before nodding and tucking their hair behind their ears. They skipped, jumped, turned, twisted according to the directions. As they reached the end, they made a larger jump than the ones before and turned to face my window, to face me. They smiled brightly and rose their hands before making a deep bow. The ones musical actors make when they finish a play and stand in those big lines at the front of the stage. Where they all hold hands and bow multiple times in unison. Letting the crowd roar and applaud them for the play they showed them.

I snorted and shook my head. Could they see that I smiled too? That I had applauded too?

They waved.

I waved back.

They picked up their bag and slung it around their shoulders, took the bicycle from where they'd placed it and walked off, continuing to deliver the mail to the houses along the street. My eyes trailed them until the windowsill made it impossible to. Then they drifted back to the hopscotch again. Two children were jumping on it. It wasn't as entertaining, though.