The Sunshine Runner

It is out there, always.

A warm kiss leaped onto my eyes, I felt it and I woke up. Again, it sneaked through the curtain and into my room. It kissed me on my eyes, as usual. Then I started to search for it but, Sunshine, the quick traveler, had slid onto the windowpane. It seemed to be saying, 揧ou will never catch me?

That抯 true! Not even once in my life, as I lived, did I succeed. It used to be a little wish of mine to keep Sunshine. That wish, however, after a long childhood of failure, has already faded away. I could only see it. I saw it lying on the parasol under which a girl was peddling ice-cream; I saw it on the trail of a rocketing car whose sirens wailing sounded so sad; I saw it glittering on the third finger of a lady who might love diamonds. Sometimes, I did see it drowning in silence without saying a word. It knew when I would finish a page of a book and flipped a new one for me. It was good at playing hide-and-seek: whenever I found it hiding behind a door, I would definitely pop open the door for fear that it might run away, but this racer, this time traveler, always overtook me by seconds.

I have followed it for quite a long time and so, little by little, I have had the chance to learn its secrets. That is, it often chased after butterflies and danced between their wings as they were fluttering in the air. It loved butterflies! It felt no embarrassment by mistaking leaves for those wings. It got disappointed once by dancing in bliss as usual, but all of a sudden this butterfly hit the ground and never moved again, dead. That was no butterfly, or any sort of fly, but a leaf, a dying leaf.

Its secrets are safe with me. I will not tell anyone that it is loving a flower, that it came this morning caressing the little flower one petal after another, and that it is afraid of not seeing her tomorrow.

Still, it will not let me catch it. It may stay on my palms for some time, only if I do not try to fold my hands. It is always quicker than I am. It keeps me running behind.