RETURNING PROPERTY

In a very distant village, where war and division had taken place, some things remained stuck. Topics which the inhabitants gradually stopped talking about. Almost automatically, the issues began to pile up inside a giant chest. Big, so big that it reached the size of the largest park in the village on Christmas day. Adults decided to add more chests in other parks to keep piling up what they avoided talking about. Everything that was there but was never to be spoken. Until one day, the children, tired of watching their parents make excuses and say nothing when they were asked why they did not take them anymore to the park to play, decided to go to the park by themselves.

As some of them had doubts and were a little reluctant, one proposed they should go in the morning. Because in the morning there is light, and when there is light you cannot be afraid, he said. All the children in the city left their homes before breakfast and headed toward the parks to see what was going on. They wanted to play again. But when they arrived at the central park, they had a big surprise. They had never seen a chest that big, not even in movies. They had to climb the trees and branches to be able to get to the top. And once they reached the top, they tried to open it in many ways until finally, with the help of their imagination, they made it. They started to take out everything that seemed old. That is how they spent the day, checking all the elements that the adults did not speak about. And with intuition, they realized that everything inside did not belong to them and should be returned. They organized themselves again and distributed home by home what belonged to each one. A bit surprised and afraid, the adults took time to cope with the things the children dropped by their front yards.

The last one to return home was Ringo. He carried a folder with his father’s name. When he peeped inside the folder, it said: secrets, frustrations, and more. His father was expecting him nervously at the entrance with the door open. With a shy but firm voice, Ringo said:

‘Dad, this does not belong to me. It’s yours. I carried it up here for love, like a kid who wants to help his dad. But it is not my job to carry it around. I leave it up to you.’

And he went inside, grabbed some cookies, and headed back to the park. He was ready to play.