Patrick Kristian

Childlike

Today I sat with a five-year-old boy under an open sky. It was just the two of us on the school oval. I watched him as he rolled and tumbled forward, as if the world spun with him. He crawled beneath soccer nets, dodging imaginary lasers and enemy ninjas. He flung his arms, leapt over tree roots, shouted moves from Ninjago, and declared with full authority that the entire world was under his protection.