Sandbox

The sun beat down hard upon the sandbox this one Monday afternoon. Billy was making his way to the park with his mother as he did every day. Although this day he had been to the doctor and was given a bright red lollipop which Billy picked out after his check up. Billy clutched the lollipop tightly in his left hand as he walk down the trail with his mother, he planned on opening it once he had arrived at the park, so he could make his friends jealous with the temptation of the red sticky treat. As Billy walked he imagined the looks he would get, and the envy that would surface as his friends begged for lick.

As Billy arrived at the park, it didn’t take long for him to realize his anticipation was deluded. He walked up into the sandbox and majestically held up the bright red lollipop, on display for all to see. As Billy slowly removed its wrapper, as it glistened in the bright of the sun, he noticed what was going on around him, not one child had even given a glance towards him or his bright red lollipop. In fact, they were all gathered on the far side of the sandbox. As Billy approached the group, he saw his friends Beth, Frank and, Will all sitting together in the back of the group, and all the kids were listening to John talk. John was an older boy who still came to the park, even though he was a couple years older than the rest of the children, and had just moved up to junior high school. All the children respected John, and looked up to him as a much smarter and wiser kid. It was known that if anyone had a problem in the sandbox, John would solve it. Beth filled Billy in on what had happened while he was at the doctor she said that “John got on top of the jungle gym and announced that there was gunna be an important meeting on the far side of The Box and that everyone should come, whoa where’d you get that! ” Beth exclaimed pointing to the yet to be licked lollipop, hanging out of Billy’s hand. Before Billy could explain his trip to the doctor and tell of his good fortune he was interrupted by John “Can’t you see that you can do better than lollipops! Do you not understand that we must take what we want! We must rise up against the oppression of this authority called our parents, we must create our own world, our own society. Free yourselves from the ignorance and open your minds, you must work for a better life and eventually you will live a better life. It is about progress!” With this, the kids cheered and threw sand up into the air. Everyone but Billy, who sat confused in the sand and wondered why the kids would rally against their parents. After all his mom and dad loved him, fed him and, gave him toys. Sure, sometimes he would get in trouble for being too loud or for saying a bad word; but he understood that’s just how the world worked. Why try to fix something that as far as Billy could see, wasn’t even broken. But John’s words had done it, the change was instant in the children, John had showed them the promise of equality and progress. “We will begin our rebellion by showing the adults that we are there equals, no more T-shirts with cats on them” John said pointedly towards a strange, round faced boy in the front row who had on a shirt with a playful cartoon cat on it. “We will dress as they do, we will show them that we have the ability of discipline and order. We will show those adults that we can use your minds that we will have purpose!” Johns confidence and coolness of speech controlled the audience. Next, John split up the children into different groups, and sent them out to various department stores around the town, where they were to steal different for the rebellion; Spray paint, crow bars, rope, banners and more. Everyone in The Sandbox, or The Box as it was now referred to had succumbed to the rebellion. Everyone but Billy, who sat on the outskirts of The Box playing with his toy dump trucks, Billy had decided that he wasn’t going to take part in the rebellion he just didn’t see the point in working for some joint purpose. Why bother with changing the world, why not just let things happen the way they do and leave it at that he thought. He didn’t want to be an adult. He saw his mom and dad fight over pieces of paper every night, and he knew that being an adult meant that he wouldn’t be able to just enjoy sitting and playing with trucks anymore, he knew that if he was an adult he would always want more and what is the point in wanting more when you’re happy with what you have.

As Billy sat playing with his trucks he noticed Beth making her way across The Box in his direction, she was dressed in a deep purple pants suit with a silver pin stripe, her hair had been tightly sleeked back into a bun, and she carried two black pencils on opposing angles to form an X. She stopped abruptly in front of Billy and glared down at him, she seemed so much bigger and important to Billy, but he wasn’t going to let himself be intimidated. “Hey Beth wanna come play?” Billy asked as he held up his truck “See this one actually has a button that you press and ...” Beth cut him off “Actually I’m here on behalf of The Box it seems you have not been paying your Box taxes and it seems we are going to have to do some repossessing” with that Beth grabbed Billy’s truck form his hand and walked off. Billy was shocked; he and Beth had been best friends forever. How could she just come and take away Billy’s truck that he had bought with his allowance. Billy felt tears begin to form in the corners of his eyes as he began to cry. He had been betrayed by his own friend all because of this so called progress. What could he do but sit on the outskirts of the box and cry, and hope that everything would go back to the way it was before.

The next day Billy came to the box with three dollar he had gotten from the tooth fairy. He was ecstatic that he had been visited by the tooth fairy, and had come into the park with a smile plastered across his face. He walked down past the jungle gym which had recently been turned into the headquarters for the first mayor of The Box, Billy had overheard kids talking about something called an election and that John won the title of mayor. None of this mattered to Billy, he would just walked on through until he heard a familiar voice “hey Billy, hey!” Billy spun around and saw his two friends Larry and Will both of them were dressed in matching suits the only difference was, Larry had on a gold tie while Will had on a silver one. “ How can you have that smile on your face! Did you hear about the price of oil? It went up 5 percent yesterday!” Larry asked Billy with a tone of urgency in his voice. Billy just stared back at them in confusion, he didn’t understand a word of what Larry had asked, and he wondered what oil even had to do with life in the sand box but instead of looking stupid, Billy decided to change the topic to something he knew he couldn’t look dumb for and that was his tooth fairy money. “Hey I just got three dollars from the tooth fairy last night. My mom said I might only get a dollar but she said I must have got three cause of how good I’ve been.” Will and Larry responded with a burst of laughter “oh children these days will believe anything.” Will said between his laughter.

Billy, vexed with the laughter turned and ran down to the bench just outside of the park. He sat down and began to sob uncontrollably, he was being stripped of his innocence, and he could feel it falling away from him, he knew it was only a couple of years until it disappeared all together. The lust for simplicity in life, progressively faded in front of his own youthful eyes, as the reality and weight of the world was knocking at the doors of his mind. Responsibility, independence, life was rushing at him with full force, and he just wished it could stay the way it was. Billy wished he could just make it all stop, so he could just enjoy but it was too late the change had already begun.