A small boy is playing by the seaside. His mustard yellow ball is made from rubber. He kicks the ball high into the air and stands still, watching and waiting until it hits the ground. The ball will hit the sand and it will roll toward the sea. The small boy will chase ball until it stops rolling, and then he will pick it up and kick it again.

This is the Atlantic Ocean. There is a warmish breeze; it ruffles the small boy's light brown hair. He has two young parents. They are both thirty years old. She is blonde and skinny and she is a junior sales exec for a large advertising corporation in the city. She won the Coca-Cola deal last year. Her bonus was one million. He is a columnist for a smart and glossy New York-based magazine. He is strong and handsome and proud of his physique and he considers himself witty. He often writes columns about relationships. In many of his columns he refers to his sexual encounters, of which there are many, and all of them true. They have a condo in Grand Cayman, a townhouse in the city, and this cottage, in Maryland. They are sitting on the veranda, drinking heavily and reading. He is reading his column, and laughing. She is reading Orlando, by Virginia Wolfe, and wanting another martini.

The small boy is two miles from the cottage where parents are drinking heavily and reading. He is walking away from the cottage, going the right direction.

There is an old black man. He is not alone. He has a dog, a retriever named Alex Hailey. They are walking along the seaside, toward the small boy. The old black man has not seen the small boy and the small boy has not seen the old black man, but Alex Hailey has seen both of them, and he is excited. Alex Hailey is fifteen years old, "too old to walk and run on the beach," the doctor told the old black man, "just too old." But the old man and Alex Hailey have been walking on the beach together for fifteen years. The old man has been walking on the beach for sixteen years, ever since the year that his wife was killed during that shooting at the Bank of America in the city. For the first year he walked alone, he was not so old then, but then Alex Hailey came into his life, and they have been together since. Alex is excited; the old man does not have any children and his only friend, another old man, does not have any children either, though he does have a cat. It is not often that Alex can play with children, and he is excited.

The old man has seen the boy and he is watching him, from a great distance, perhaps two hundred yards. The old man sees the boy kick the mustard yellow ball into the air. And he feels the sand begin to move beneath his feet and he feels his tattered brown hat fly from his head and he feels the light wind increase to a strong wind. He feels all of this while the mustard colored ball is in the air; and he sees that the mustard colored ball is still in the air, but now it is above the Atlantic Ocean. It is a hundred feet in the air, and flying out away from the seashore and away from the small boy. The boy begins running toward the Atlantic Ocean, waving his hands above his small head of brown hair. And then the boy begins running faster and faster and faster. He is running so fast, the old man sees, that his feet are barely touching the ground. And suddenly his feet are not touching the ground; he too is in the air, five feet above the ground, and then fifteen, and then fifty feet. He is flying, flying, faster and faster, his arms kicking and his legs waving and the old man can hear him laughing. He is flying and he is laughing because he has always wanted to fly and now that he is finally flying it seems like a good time to laugh.

The old man smiles to himself and thinks that the small boy must be happier now. The ball and the boy are just two small specks in the sky, a mile from the seashore, and a mile above the ground; and going father and higher and farther and higher. The wind begins to subside. It slows and gradually stops. The old man whistles for Alex Hailey, and Alex Hailey barks in response, and they continue walking down the beach.

Two miles away, the boy's parents are still on the veranda. They have finished their drinks and finished their reading. She is on her back and they are thrashing together, in syncopated rhythm, on the dry wooden planks of the veranda, loving each other, passionately; and not thinking at all about the small boy as he flies toward Europe.

LETTERS FROM READERS