Summer was infinite. The mornings were electric, filled with kids sleeping in, slowly coming into the breath of the day by about noon. The sun evaporated any drowsiness like the morning dew. The afternoons witnessed a score of children racing and screaming around the neighborhood, locked into their eternal thoughts of summer. Gold, crimson, and a pumpkin orange floated into the sky each night, reflecting onto our browned bodies off the few wispy clouds left in the sky. To the mind of a nine-year-old, the three months of freedom lasted forever, until August, when I realized that the month was filled with torture and death. The sudden realization of the approaching monotony of school, where time was only the measure of seconds before the two short days of liberty each week, came to me on a gorgeous crystal day.

After a hearty breakfast of Honey Nut Cheerios, two hours of becoming a mindless blob in front of the television, and a sandwich somewhere around two, I was ready for a day of adventures with the neighborhood crew. The day scorched our faces, so we were confined to the shade during the hot hours of the afternoon. We first gathered rocks from one house’s landscaping and carried then to a driveway for drawing. Countless games of tic-tac-toe were scratched onto the concrete from the dust of rocks and stones. Talk floated between us about the upcoming night. The little stars of fire would be winging around the bushes at dusk, and we planned to cage them in our boxes of wire mesh. The weather looked good for the evening, and our sleeping bags were ready for a night under the stars. Our creative minds then conceived the idea for a huge set of roads across the pavement for our Lego Cars. We constructed houses and garages for the little men that soon were brought forth from bedrooms and basements. One of the cars suddenly rocketed down the steeper part of the driveway.

We then rushed home to manufacture marvelous racers of brightly colored blocks, snapped together in new ways to produce alien vehicles at the starting line. Sails billowed in the wind from my monstrous creation. After a few last-minute additions to the various vehicles (a combination of drag racers, two obscure things that resembled stock cars, a chain of about forty wheels, assorted trucks, some with cargo, a flatbed on three sets of wheels that boasted three fans and twelve jets, a mousy-looking car, and a huge British frigate on wheels), someone started the countdown. We hurled our creations down the driveway. The two dragsters immediately flipped over some unseen irregularity in the pavement. One was lucky enough to have landed upright again, and began creeping down to the bottom. Many off-balanced creations swerved into the grass, causing elements of the cars to leap into the forest of miniature trees. My frigate was one of the four that ever reached the street, its sails catching the wind and propelling it past all the others. The races continued for a long time afterwards, with joyous shouting prevailing as each new racer was presented at the starting line. The cement on which the cars were raced soaked up the warmth of the sun and radiated it up towards us, a heat that soaked our skin with all of nature’s glory.

After one particular break for the building of new cars, someone presented a board for a ramp. Our cars could not leap over the bump that the thickness of the board provided. They either hit the edge of the ramp and stopped or flipped and crashed, sending hundreds of little pieces skittering across the cement. Seeing that this idea was ending with a huge search for missing persons (the little guys) and pieces, I suggested using the ramp for our bikes. A tired search party quickly assented to my decision. Legos were taken home to their boxes, and bikes were wheeled across lawns to the sidewalk.

Our first attempts at flying proved unsuccessful, but after an hour of practice, The majority of us had perfected the art. The smaller children were becoming tired from the continuous pedaling. They ran inside and soon appeared with rolls of toilet paper fluttering in the wind. These ribbons of white were stretched across the ramp, flapping to and fro in the light breeze. We then had a finality to each run, and the little kids beamed with laughter at each new tear in the ribbon.

Scents of barbecues began to fill the air, and parents began calling their children home for the evening meal. My father’s voice swept across the lawns and reverberated in my ears, the familiar call of “Dinner!” My wheel had already begun to inch from the starting line, and I was not about to give up one last chance of flight for a few minutes of dinner. My legs pumped their energy into the wheels, which, in turn, slowly accelerated until the cool air bit at my skin, evaporating the little moisture left in my mouth and eyes into the clouds. My front wheel suddenly bumped against the ramp, and I prepared myself for the leap. The ribbon stretched taught and tore against my chest. I stretched my arms out like the wings of the hawks above and felt the bike loose itself from my control. I toppled to the ground; the bike slammed into my right leg, along with the rest of my body. My head thumped the grass nearby while I screamed because of the pain racing through my leg, faster than our cars from previous hours.

Parents rushed to the scene of the accident, and Dad rushed me home. The pain in my leg subsided quickly, but not that of the realization of time and that life was not infinite. Our glorious days of summer would not last.