A Kindergarten Love Story

Sitting upon the window seat, coddled and warm as he watched the world go by. Little Antone had no idea of the life that lay beneath him as he stared out, viewing the snow which collected into great drifts against the outside wall. Away from the window seat, away from his warm and comforting home, lived a life, a life not all that different from his own. A world he only knew of from dreams, it was a world he would discover, not on his own, but with help from a most unlikely source.
Antone had lived, by all means, a very normal life, in a very normal family. There was one sister, a father, a mother, and various cousins to occupy his family tree. A small house in the suburbs of London, he lived a life that, while not elegant, was not entirely uncomfortable either. A small yard bordered their house, and a garden in which his mother tended to religiously. It was this garden which Antone, a gifted artist, would sit and stare at all day, garnering inspiration for his next piece.
From the time he’d been a little lad, Antone had been a strange one. Never seeing the big picture, but always focusing on small details. This made him the brunt of the neighborhood boy’s jokes, and they would harass him endlessly. It was only earlier in the year, when he was staring out the window at his mother’s prized Geraniums he’d found a kindred spirit.
He’d first yelled at her, thinking she was there to do some damage. “You there!” he yelled, running out from his half open window, brandishing his weapon of choice, a tennis racket. Although he was never much one for sports, young Antone kept it around anyway, as it might come in handy in situations like this. “You! Stop there, I say! What are you doing in my mother’s garden?”
It was only then did he realize she was a girl. Fair haired and slender, she had the biggest doe eyes he’d ever seen. And yet, she looked somehow familiar, her face one he’d recognized from every painting and every masterpiece from every artist he’d ever studied. This was the face of Beauty herself.
“I’m sorry, it’s just that I saw a rabbit, and he was running this way. I thought I’d follow him.” Her voice did not falter, and held a mysterious air of confidence. Not something young Antone was used to encountering from a girl, much less a girl he’d just threatened with a tennis racket.
“Oh, alright then…” He toed at the ground nervously. Though it defeated his original purpose, Antone knelt down, and picked one of the geranium heads, handing it off to the lovely muse who stood before him. “I’m Antone,” He said in his most grown up, manly voice, which was to say, not very manly at all.
“I’m Melissa.” She took the flower, and sniffed it, looking uneasy a bit. “And flowers make me s-suh-snuh—SNEEZE!”
No longer were they in the garden, Antone was ducking for his dear life, covering his head in a foxhole, out fighting with the yanks and the boys from home. A missile, nigh, a grenade was flying at him at speeds of over 135 miles per hour. An explosion so grand it sent shockwaves through the ground around him.
Lifting his head, he found the geranium head to have disintegrated into a million fractals, petals strewn around them on the ground. “It’s quite alright. I understand. I’ve had a bit of trouble with the sniffles myself lately.” But his words fell upon deaf ears, or rather, no ears at all! Melissa had run away, perhaps in embarrassment. “Rats.” Antone grumbled to himself.
Days after that were spent much like the days before it, watching life roll by from his picturesque window, waiting for his next bit of inspiration to come to him, a pen in one hand, a piece of paper in the other. And often he found it in the changing seasons. But the pictures he drew lacked spark. They lacked imagination. They lacked…her.
It would be months again before he’d see her, when the leaves were just beginning to don their fall ensembles, the air becoming crisp in anticipation of the winter that would lie before them shortly. He would watch as those very same leaves would dance upon that very same air, and through it, she appeared.
It was like a dream, the way she effortlessly waltzed up the walkway, a tweed pea coat protecting her from the autumn, a chipper red hat topping off those elegant curls. And when the doorbell rang, it sent Antone cowering for his foxhole again. He could hear the voices of the two most beloved females in his life chattering away.
“Hello? I’m not sure I’ve got the right house…does Antone live here? He’s about this tall, has a thing for geraniums…You must be his mother, you look an awful lot like him,” It was his muse! Come to inspire him again! Oh the thought would make any seven year old’s heart flutter with joy!
“I’ll see if he’s available.” His mother smiled, pride swelling in her heart. It had been tough on her, all the years Antone had spent in isolation. If she could want one thing only for her son, it would be happiness in the form of a friend.
Before she could even call out his name, Antone raced out from beneath the window seat, and out the door, sending his mother’s skirts billowing up in a flutter of wind. “Hi!” He greeted Melissa, the tip of a crisp white track shoe shuffling dirt around at his feet, as was his habit.
“Hi…I came to ask you if you wanted to play today. Last time I kinda sneezed all over you.” She giggled, and tugged on his hand, tugging him towards her bicycle. It was a shiny purple monster; bits of chrome sticking out from all angles making it look fierce.
“I don’t think, I mean, are you sure it’s safe? I don’t think I want…” His words were cut off as she plopped him onto the back of the bicycle, and sat in front of him.
Together, wordlessly, cloaked in a world of happy giggles, a world of marmite sandwiches and afternoon teas; a world of songs and laughter, a world Antone thought he’d never know; together they rode off into the sunset (although there really was no sunset since they both had to be home at 3 in the afternoon, and they really didn’t ride that far, as they weren’t allowed off of their street.)

Fin.