((ignore the verbatim ramblings))

[riles298]

There are two children playing football in the yard behind mine. The boy declares that all the balls are too fat for any good games, when he himself is more portly than the worst offender. His younger sister appears not to understand the game, just the inclusion of the ball. But then, neither does he; shouting about the offence he kicks the beach ball at the little girl in the puffy jacket, then takes on the commentator voice and says that number 31 has given the ball to the other team. He rubs his arms, bare, and zips up his puffy vest to half-way. He denies his sister's suggestion that he should join her in the brigade of the puffy jackets. He is one of the manly men, arms bare, that will take a girl under the bleachers one day. His sister is just playing along, she will aspire to greater things. Nothing achieved, no, just aspirations. Now she wants to be a botanist, now she can still dream of veterinary school, until she starts to brush her hair after she showers. She brushed her hair when she woke up this morning, her cowlicks stick up and catch the cold wind.

For now, they search together for a golf ball lost in the garden by the fence.