Scream

In significant pain after my morning outing, I came home, laid down on the bed, and straightaway, mercifully, fell asleep. Unusual that, given that sleep is not generally easy to come by when you're in pain. Maybe there was some leftover influence from the Xanax of the night before. Or maybe I was simply exhausted. I woke to the sound of screaming from the girls next door. These were not screams of terror, but more like screams of excitement. Voluntary screams. Play screams, you might say. I lay in bed listening, and heard also the voices of boys. Young men, rather. It seemed they were all playing at something together. And it seems that girls must scream when they are playing with boys. Who knows, maybe the boys were putting lizards down the girls' blouse necks. Or some  other slithery sort of thing. Or maybe they were just chasing each other around in circles. I looked out the window by the head of the bed, but could not see the youngters, just beyond my driveway, though I could see their shadows thrown to and fro on the street pavement by the late afternoon sun, floating independently yet together like a bundle of balloons. My God, I slept most of the afternoon and did not know it till this moment. Until the voices of the young people woke me.