The place is an old sky blue van with a white stripe along the side. It looks like the volkswagen vans that were popular in the sixties. It sits in the gravel off the north-east corner of my house beside the big brown ford truck from the same era in the driveway. The van is locked, only my dad has the key, stashed and hidden away in some unknown location. There is still a way to unlock it through the sunroof; a feat that only I can perform. The van has two front seats, the rest is windowless and empty: a cozy secretive den. A place that is not spectacular in any obvious way to an outside observer but is magical to the ones who know its secrets. One is my brother, four years my elder. Another is the girl in my class who lives just around the corner. Finally there is me, the one who can open this special place. What makes it special is that troubles and quarrels are have no power there.
Playing a game with my older brother, it is a place where we can rest happily without fighting the way young brothers tend to do. Where we can talk, invent and pretend whatever we want. It is like the van contains any world that you can dream of without needing to follow the rules of the one outside. We can go on lengthy road trips, driving anywhere at all at any speed, even though we don't physically leave home. The magic of the van makes everything fun, as if joy is the only emotion allowed and arguments or put-downs are strictly forbidden by an unseen force.
With the girl down the street it is different and simultaneously, it is the same. It is the same because all that matters is experiencing joy, friendship, and adventure. In the van we can easily talk for hours about everything, from school to personal problems knowing that the van won't share our secrets with anyone else. Secret problems that are meaningless in the confines of the van but shape everything that happens to us. When we don't want to talk about that outside world any more we create our own and adventure through them, playing together as perfect friends that don't care whether the other is a boy or a girl.
The van can only provide respite until it is time to go home, to play in the sun, eat, or go on to other things. The girl is long gone: she only lived down the street for a year before her parents moved again, vanishing with her in tow. The van disappeared later, sold at some point that I no longer remember. The truck that sat beside it is more recently departed and unlike the others I have seen it a couple times since it left. Most of all: I miss the time spent with those people, in that van.
Playing a game with my older brother, it is a place where we can rest happily without fighting the way young brothers tend to do. Where we can talk, invent and pretend whatever we want. It is like the van contains any world that you can dream of without needing to follow the rules of the one outside. We can go on lengthy road trips, driving anywhere at all at any speed, even though we don't physically leave home. The magic of the van makes everything fun, as if joy is the only emotion allowed and arguments or put-downs are strictly forbidden by an unseen force.
With the girl down the street it is different and simultaneously, it is the same. It is the same because all that matters is experiencing joy, friendship, and adventure. In the van we can easily talk for hours about everything, from school to personal problems knowing that the van won't share our secrets with anyone else. Secret problems that are meaningless in the confines of the van but shape everything that happens to us. When we don't want to talk about that outside world any more we create our own and adventure through them, playing together as perfect friends that don't care whether the other is a boy or a girl.
The van can only provide respite until it is time to go home, to play in the sun, eat, or go on to other things. The girl is long gone: she only lived down the street for a year before her parents moved again, vanishing with her in tow. The van disappeared later, sold at some point that I no longer remember. The truck that sat beside it is more recently departed and unlike the others I have seen it a couple times since it left. Most of all: I miss the time spent with those people, in that van.
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