NOW AND THEN - G.H.

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The McCartney boy is scheming again. I can tell this, because he's been spending an absurd amount of time outside lately. Usually he's just cooped up in his room, banging out oldies tunes on his guitar. I can see his bedroom window from mine, and can spot him playing by his window sill nearly 24/7. He's always looking wistfully out as he plays and sings, not looking to me, but to the sky, the trees, the general scenery. I can tell he craves more from life than this meaningless mundanity. I know this, for I am just the same way.

Paul and I aren't friends, not really. We went to grade school together, and I suppose we must have hung out during recess at some point, but our "friendship" (if you could call it that) never really transcended the playground. Though being neighbours, our parents were never particularly close either, and with a large fence separating our yards, a feeling of cold isolation (that I can only assume is mutual) was created. Fortunately though, my bedroom is on the second story of my house- so I still do get a perfect view of the McCartney family's yard- albeit bird's eye. So that's how I've noticed Paul's strange new habit.

It's not like Paul has never gone outside before, he absolutely has. He walks his dog, he sometimes sits underneath the old oak tree in his yard, reading or doing homework. But I have never, EVER, in my life seen him out there as much as he has been this past week. Every day since last Tuesday, Paul has walked around in a peculiar spiral in his yard. Round and round he goes, mumbling random words to himself as he would do so. Well, random words to most these days, but I know exactly what he has been referencing.

Liverpool. 59. Leather. Quarry. Liverpool. 59. Leather. Quarry.