LUCAS BROWN AND THE OTHER MAN PART 3

Lucas and the other man watched as the children played.

They had seized the opportunity to conduct a little experiment while the minders were out of the room and had opened one of the large windows on the far wall. They had done this by piling up boxes of toys which they were now standing on.

They had tied tiny parachutes to several stuffed animals and we dropping out of the window. The lighter ones caused much delight as they slowly fell down toward the pavement. The children giggled madly. Aside from period bursts of this laughter, the children tried to keep silent.

The unmistakeable sound of one of the minders approaching ended their temporary enjoyment.

They gathered up the remaining toys and descended the boxes but did not dismantle the makeshift construction.

To their happiness, in was one of the more lenient minders that had arrived. They offered up little smiles to her kind face and she beamed back. They knew they would be allowed to continue playing for a while longer under her watch.

But as children do, they had already forgotten their last source of entertainment and began playing a simple game of catch.

They ran around in an ecstatic frenzy, seemingly forgetting the more hurtful aspects of their circumstance, if only for a while.

One child was tagged ‘it’ and he ran wildly after the others.

He set his sights on one boy in particular. There was no reason for this, he simply just did.

He chased him around the perimeter of the room, groping the air just behind his back as he failed again and again to snatch at his clothing.

The child he was chasing ran up to where the boxes were still piled up and climbed them. The chaser tried to reach up and tag his foot but the child kept lifting them as he did so, chuckling as he avoided each attempt.

The chaser began to slam his body into the boxes, they shook slightly but the child atop them still stood strong.

Another child joined him in the quest to get the boy down. They both began slamming into the boxes.

This time, the bottom box shifted slightly to the right and destabilised the pile.

The child atop them wobbled for a moment, trying to regain his balance.

Then he fell backwards through the open window down towards the pavement below.

The minder, who had looked up just in time to see the child disappear from sight. She began screaming uncontrollably.

A few miles away, another child lost consciousness.