Giggling, two little girls chased each other around the old Civil War cannon.
A mother lifted a baby from a stroller. “Look at you!” Carefully holding the baby’s waist, she stood two short wobbly legs on the cannon.
A young man came up to the cannon’s end and peered into it.
A bearded gentleman strolling through the park paused to test his knuckles on the hard cannon.
An elderly man and woman sat at a nearby picnic table.
“That,” commented the old man, “might be the very one that killed my great great grandfather’s brother.”
“Could be,” replied the old woman.
“Brothers. Killing each other.”
A little boy on the grass was flying in every direction chasing a pigeon. The pigeon somehow always remained just beyond reach. The little boy shouted excitedly and veered to attack the pigeon from behind. The bird eluded him easily.
The little boy saw the cannon, ran up and stopped beside it.
He stood behind the cannon and looked along its inert length to sight a chestnut tree.
“Boom!”
He looked up at the chestnut tree that had not been blown to pieces.
“Boom!”
The chestnut tree was enormous, green and beautiful. It must have been very old. Above the grass it rose, the bark of its wide trunk furrowed with age. The green leaves fluttered slightly in the wind, and in the sunlight they made the old tree seem like a bright mirage.
“Boom!”
Another pigeon flew down from the tree to the grass. The little boy saw it and turned. The cannon was forgotten. The chase resumed.
“Thrilling,” said one of the old people.
Short Stories by Richard 