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Description
One swam through the air in a haphazard dance to the ground, followed by perhaps three or four smaller ones.  They shone in the brightness of the sun with a sort of lazy twinkle, the kind that appears in the water when you wash dishes but you hardly ever notice.  It’s a beautifully dull shade, blue and pink and purple, that strangely makes you think of cleanliness and smudginess at the same time.  They came at deliberate intervals—sometimes some particularly large ones would float by, and sometimes a cascade of tiny ones would hurry down bouncing against each other like frenzied children in a schoolyard.

That was her pleasure, to imagine so many little things on objects that were essentially inconsequential.  Or at least, that’s what she thought the world would say.  Sitting on that bench holding a plastic bottle full of soapy water, and blowing bubbles with a plastic wand, she felt both irresponsibly childish and exotic.  It’s very easy to waste one of your summer days, but more difficult to find a way to enjoy your day without being accused of indulging in a whim.  But what did all that matter to her then, blowing gently and quietly through that plastic wand was much easier than explaining why she did it.

Nobody walked by; it was as if everyone were engaged in something more important, elsewhere.  She wondered what they were doing.  Changing a person’s oil, selling stocks, deciding the fate of a company, saving the world?  She blew faster and more forcefully, sending the bubbles in a wild fall to nowhere.  Watching them burst, she pondered her own importance.  She was living a strange time.  We all live a strange life, she thought, but how often do we live a strange time?

It was a definite line that blurred in both directions.  It was the first day of summer in which the sun was shinning with force, the sky was bluer than water, the clouds were like cotton, and the air carried a chill.  Fall was coming, and like everything else she felt her life was finally coming.  To some degree we all feel we live like machines, waiting for something to switch us on.  We look forward to growing up, to having a life, but we really never know what flips that switch.  She felt the hand approaching hers.  She felt some sort of definition of herself coming.

She tried to blow a big one—it burst before it had a chance to leave the wand.  Sighing, she dropped the wand in the plastic bottle and replaced its top.  She looked around once more and spotted a couple with a young child walking towards the park’s playground in the distance.  She shook her head.  Sometimes, she felt she came here pretending to be a character in one of those stories—observing people, and thinking about life and the world.  But, if she did it for that reason, it was merely to feel slightly important.  She stood up and put the plastic bottle away in her bag.  In reality, she thought, she was as important as those bubbles.  She smiled, and had a brief vision of her reflection on a floating bubble.  She shook her head, realizing she was starting to romanticize again, and started walking away.

Description
One swam through the air in a haphazard dance to the ground, followed by perhaps three or four smaller ones.  They shone in the brightness of the sun with a sort of lazy twinkle, the kind that appears in the water when you wash dishes but you hardly ever notice.  It’s a beautifully dull shade, blue and pink and purple, that strangely makes you think of cleanliness and smudginess at the same time.  They came at deliberate intervals—sometimes some particularly large ones would float by, and sometimes a cascade of tiny ones would hurry down bouncing against each other like frenzied children in a schoolyard.

That was her pleasure, to imagine so many little things on objects that were essentially inconsequential.  Or at least, that’s what she thought the world would say.  Sitting on that bench holding a plastic bottle full of soapy water, and blowing bubbles with a plastic wand, she felt both irresponsibly childish and exotic.  It’s very easy to waste one of your summer days, but more difficult to find a way to enjoy your day without being accused of indulging in a whim.  But what did all that matter to her then, blowing gently and quietly through that plastic wand was much easier than explaining why she did it.

Nobody walked by; it was as if everyone were engaged in something more important, elsewhere.  She wondered what they were doing.  Changing a person’s oil, selling stocks, deciding the fate of a company, saving the world?  She blew faster and more forcefully, sending the bubbles in a wild fall to nowhere.  Watching them burst, she pondered her own importance.  She was living a strange time.  We all live a strange life, she thought, but how often do we live a strange time?

It was a definite line that blurred in both directions.  It was the first day of summer in which the sun was shinning with force, the sky was bluer than water, the clouds were like cotton, and the air carried a chill.  Fall was coming, and like everything else she felt her life was finally coming.  To some degree we all feel we live like machines, waiting for something to switch us on.  We look forward to growing up, to having a life, but we really never know what flips that switch.  She felt the hand approaching hers.  She felt some sort of definition of herself coming.

She tried to blow a big one—it burst before it had a chance to leave the wand.  Sighing, she dropped the wand in the plastic bottle and replaced its top.  She looked around once more and spotted a couple with a young child walking towards the park’s playground in the distance.  She shook her head.  Sometimes, she felt she came here pretending to be a character in one of those stories—observing people, and thinking about life and the world.  But, if she did it for that reason, it was merely to feel slightly important.  She stood up and put the plastic bottle away in her bag.  In reality, she thought, she was as important as those bubbles.  She smiled, and had a brief vision of her reflection on a floating bubble.  She shook her head, realizing she was starting to romanticize again, and started walking away.