The sound of silence

Walking through the park after work today, I heard a strange noise: children laughing.

And it struck me that one of the things that has been most oppressive for me this pandemic year has been the silence.

Yes, some small children play in the playgrounds, but they don't make much noise. For most of the time, it's a matter of a child or two and a parent, playing in the sandpit. 

Even during the first lockdown, people getting some exercise by walking round the park would pass each other by, usually without even looking at each other, never mind greeting each other with a cheery "Guten Morgen". It was as though people were afraid to speak to each other, afraid of catching  'the plague' from each other. People didn't so much walk past each other as slink past each other furtively. Scared.

This afternoon, though, I peered through the trees and bushes to see where the strange noise of laughing children was coming from and saw, for the first time in over a year, pre-teen children clad in colourful team tabards running around outdoors on the sports ground, being coached by their trainer. The girl I saw - maybe 12 years of age with a long blonde pony tail - was positively beaming with delight. Her face shone with happiness.

I look forward to the time when life gets a bit noisier and livelier again.