Filtering Through!

At one end I see a small kid who is sitting on some roadside pavement and picking up stones, little ones; and then immediately throwing them away. He doesn't look up, he just doesn't. I watch him, sucking at my cigarette butt, waiting why he's so involved. There is nothing that disturbs him; a bike passing by fails to touch his attention. And there's nobody around. No father, no fucking mother. No one. Who's this little guy? What's he doing? How can picking those littlest of stones keep him absorbed? And why is nobody around?
I hear voices go into my ears. They seem to be coming from so near, I think whether I have said something. Someone shouts from behind me.
I look back, there's no one; I look at the child, he's gone. His focus, his activity, his finger marks on the mud remain; and I stop seeing!
Where's everyone, and it's then that I collapse. Someone tells me I was looking here and there when I fell. I think it was my dad who told me that. I ask him whether he had watched me fall. He says he had. I don't believe it. Who was that child? I can still remember his face, the complete absence of everyone except us two, and endless voices. I need to sleep more, I guess.