Re-do button

The Re-do button                     


Charlotte was just six years old; she had many fears
The monkey bars she wouldn’t touch (she was afraid of heights)
Playing tag at noon? Never! (A scrape would surely soon follow)
And then there was the worst fear yet.

On Charlotte’s street there was a place,
The children went to after school,
When the sun beats down upon little brows; and sweat poured down little cheeks,
Down to the brook they’d go, the deep and dangerous brook, to refresh their tired souls.

For one whole year, Charlotte stayed away, from the dangers that life tossed,
And this left her alone on the playground; safely watching the others.
But then one fateful day, a young boy saw her loneliness, as she sat under a tree,
And then he came towards her, a remote control in hand.

“Listen” he said, handing her the contraption.
“Here’s a magic button, that can help you with your fears,
If ever you want to go back in time, to this day and place,
Just press the button, and you can re-do everything, ”

Charlotte stared at the gift, as the possibilities crept up.
If she could just come back to today, then anything she did,
Would be erased. She could do whatever she wanted,
Take unknown risks she’d never aloud herself before.

Trying out her secret weapon, Charlotte went up to some peers,
And shyly asked if she could join in on their game of tag.
She ran, and ran, and ran, and on the pavement scraped her knees and palms,
But what did she care? At the end of the day, she could make them all disappear.

And then she tried the monkey bars,
So tall they reached the sky.
True she almost made it to the end,
but she slipped at the last rod

Now she was severely bruised
As well as covered with scrapes
But what did it matter, she was alive and free!
Now on to something farther.

So when the bell rang and the children were dismissed
To stay home for the weekend and enjoy the early summer day
Charlotte walked apart from the rest, and decided to cool down,
As her fear had never allowed her before.

                                      ***
           
She had the brook to herself.
Slowly she slipped into the cold, water, holding her magic button close to her side,
And smiled as she waded in deeper and deeper,
To her thigh, her chest, her neck, suddenly she was floating,

But the smile slowly faded,
As she felt a little tingle around her stomach, which had been fine earlier on.
Panicking, she grasped the little button she brought with her in the brook,
The one that would take her back to the playground earlier that day.

Nothing happened.
She couldn’t move a muscle, her whole body had cramped up.
No one heard her screaming as she sank even lower in the pool.
First her chin, and then her nose, and then her eyes, all went deeper into the water

Before she felt the tug of death pull her ever closer,
She wondered at the small boy who gave her the button,
And told her of its powers
Why didn’t the button work?

Well maybe she had pressed it to many times.
Maybe it had broke when it had gotten wet.
Never once in that short period did she think
That the boy had lied about the button.

In fact, he hadn’t meant to lie,
But just make the girl feel safer,
So that she would feel comfortable enough to play with her friends at noon.
He was the only student who noticed she never came to school the next week.