The five-year-old boy seemed to be going through a type of summer doldrums. He showed little interest in his normal activities (his food items were not battling each other for domination over the known universe), was growing cranky, and was often caught staring into space over his Frosted Flakes. His parents weren't sure what was going on inside his head, but they knew that such a sullen attitude was out of the ordinary for their normally even-keeled child.
The father, guiltily theorizing that maybe he wasn't spending enough time with his son, took him on an unexpected daddy-son walk. They boy perked up as soon as his feet hit the road. His uninhibited laughter rang out as he raced from crack to crack, imagining each as a finish line. His shouts of joy in physical effort lifted his father's spirits as he thought, "This is the son I know. He is back."
Then the boy planted his face square in the middle of a cold silver pole holding up a bright red stop sign. A street that had, moments before, heard the sounds of a young boy's giddy happiness now rang out with anguished cries. "Is it bleeding?" and "I want to go home" came out between sobs as a spot of red came out on the boy's lip as if to match the unmoved sign above the pair. The contrast couldn't be greater as the two retraced their steps home, blood dripping from one's swelling upper lip while the other wondered if this was always to be the fate of fathers: the unintended cause of their children's misery.
Peace
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