'Hi, boy'. I asked. ‘What are you doing here?'
He just said me nothing meaning look. I saw a big ball of tangled rope in his hands. He was about ten years old. He was lost and didn't know what he could to do. The rope was going up the single tree that was high and standing in the middle of empty field, large enough for not to get any troubles with flying a kite.
I thought how I could help him - a big fat man that had forgotten how to climb up the tree. I did it when I was ten years old boy like him.
The kite was big and stuck on the top of tree into branches. Low sun emphasized its colors making it look like a big butterfly.
'I'm sorry, boy', I said. 'I don't know how I can to help you'.
The boy lifted sad face. I got that the kite had for him a great value. He spend a lot time for creating it. All its stuff that was red and blue and yellow – everything was bright. I thought how it was built with a long careful and thorough work – every part was in the right place – its head that was like belonged for some giant insect and its tail.
'I see you worked on it a long time,' I said.
'All summer'.
'Did you do all this work alone?'
'No,' he said. 'My brother helped me'.
I turned on my imagination trying to watch how it was. I thought about the boy's patience. How he worked with tools and hurt his fingers with knife when he had cut red and blue paper and wooden bars. I remembered how it was hard for me in my childhood. Yes, I had no brother and I got everything only with my own experience that was not so big. I got it slowly – step by step.
'Okay, boy,' I said. 'I could lift you up to the branches, but don't fall down, please'.
I took the boy and lifted him without his permission and I felt the tremor in his body. But he didn't object. He just caught of the branch. I saw he was afraid of height but he begun to get up next branch and next that took some minutes. At last, the kite felt down but during some seconds, he was falling next. I just caught his body. God bless the boy was not fat - very skinny. Anyway, I felt it when I held him above my head. I put him down on the ground.
He stayed on his both trembling legs and breathed hard as he had run so fare and fast.
'Are you okay?' I asked him.
He nodded and looked at me. In his eyes was something different. He was glad but didn’t say me ‘Thank you’. I was glad too. But what I did here? I wasn’t alone before I meet this boy. 'Anyway, where's my dog?' I thought. I was involved into all saving of the boy's kite as forgot everything.
'Max...' I called. 'Where are you?'
'I'm here' the boy responded. ‘Do you know my name?’
'Not you,' I said. 'My dog'.
He sand me an angry look. He didn't like that any dog could get the same name like him.
It was rustle in the high grass. The big red haired ball of wool emerged to us.
'Don't worry,' I said. 'It's Max'.
My dog came closer to the boy and begun to sniff him. He tried to hide his hands and stepped back and I saw his face and understood that he was afraid not only of height.
When I was small like him, I had no brother but there was dog that grew with me all my childhood - other dog - no Max. It was a brother for me – big brother. I had afraid nothing when it was with me. Max the dog was like little son now because I had no children but I tried be kind for extraneous children – little self-therapy against my sociopathy.
The boy ran away the tree and released his kite. It rose up and begun to fly. Almost hidden behind the horizon sun played with colors of kite’s paper strips. Colorful body waved from side to side like breathed with fresh air that keep it in the sky. But the wind instantly changed its direction and the kite begun to lost its altitude and again stuck into green branches of the same tree.
And I thought:
'Lucky boy'.