NEVER FORGET; Tysh

Fun Day at the Park

Josh was a strange boy, well, that's what everyone thought of him. He never went outside, but he never truly stayed inside either. He's always wandering, discovering, but not trying to be outside. He'd be in the attic one minute before changing to the basement the next. He never sat down for long and always preferred to stand instead. Yep, Josh was a strange boy indeed. His mother had to constantly force him outside; she'd buy him a bike that he'd only ride around in the garage for a week before leaving it to collect dust and spiderwebs for the rest of the year. She'd would constantly kick him outside just to see him still standing at the door, like a puppy, waiting for him moment to run back in. They never knew why Josh never liked going outside. They'd call it a miracle if they heard faintly in the distance of Josh's voice: "I'm going outside, mom!" Why, Laura would break down in tears of joy and thank the heavens as they would celebrate this rare moment in time.

But, those moments never do come. Josh was pacing in his room, trying to look for something, anything, to play with. He stomps loudly as he grew frustrated with his search, of to no result, and stomped right out of his room and in front of his mom.

"Mom, I can't find my toys! I've looked everywhere but there's no sign of them!" He cried to his mother. "I'm really bored! What can I do? I'll do chores if it distracts me!" Laura ponders for a second before she realized this was her opportunity to get him out of the house.

"You know, dear, there's toys in the playground just down the road. You can play with those." Josh looks down as if to think before looking back up suspiciously.

"You're not trying to get me to go outside, are you?" Laura laughs nervously as she pat her son's brown curly locks. She moves his hair out of his eyes and crouched down to look at him.

"No, I'm just trying to distract you that's all. You wanted to have fun and play, right?" Josh nods in response. "Well, if you don't like the toys there, we can go back home, how about that?" Josh ponders for a second before agreeing.

"Okay. But what if I like the toys?"

"Then we'll stay for as long as we can!"

"M'kay, lets go!" Josh runs to the door and waits for his mother to follow him. She holds his hand as they walk to the park that was at the end of their street. Josh seemed excited when he looked around the outside world. It's not that it was his first time outside, minus the countless of times his mother would leave him in the backyard for him to try and play with his siblings. He did have a window; what fascinated him the most was the sky. He loved the colors of the sunset and sunrise. Not so much when the sun was high in the sky and it was all blue and white. He liked it when it was gray, though. Laura sits down at a bench and lets Josh go to have fun. There were a couple of other kids at the park, some younger and some older than little Josh.

He ran up to the big play structure that was all sorts of colors of fake plastic. He runs up the steps and goes to the highest point there, at the slide. He thought it should be fun to go down those, right? It was cold due to the weather over in Columbus, so he felt chills run up his spine and arms as he went down. And when he got up and touched a pole to support himself, it felt as if the pole pinched him. He pulls his hand back in slight pain. He huffs when he turns back to the pole.

"Mean ol' pole! You pinched me!" He said. He kicked the pole lightly before running off to another thing. He found the monkey bars and climbed onto the stand and jumped up to reach the bars. After a while, he decided to try and climb the poles to the monkey bars and grabbed the first bar with his two fists. Now he didn't know what to do next.

Maybe I'm supposed to grab the other one? He thought. So he reached over but his short arms couldn't reach, and he fell. His hands felt like they were burning from his fingers and the bark felt uncomfortable as he laid in it. He got up and wiped the pieces of bark from his clothes.