The Same Dark Street

I am sitting in my loft bedroom in our creaky old big red house. My window, stuffed with an AC unit no longer in use thanks to the chilly night air, has two slots on the side that let in the breeze and sounds of the night as it falls upon the dark streets and the alley outside my window. I sit in my wooden desk chair, lightly strumming my guitar, as I hear the faint voice of a boy maybe ten or twelve years old crying out for his mom. I hear the voice come closer and become louder as I visualize the boy walking down the alley searching and confused. The boy's voice crescendos and then decrescendos as he passes our house. I think little of it because often our neighbor kids will wander the streets nearby, and I assume it must be one of them. I resume my work, playing and singing and searching online for song lyrics. A few minutes later I hear a man's voicing crying out into the darkness for a boy-- "Levi?... Levi!......Levi!" No answer. It must have been only a short time after that I hear a woman's voice, "Levi? Levi?? Levi!"

I can't help but know in my heart the panic that, just minutes before, filled their boy as he had been walking the same dark street searching for them as well. My mind races with thoughts and guilt. What is happening that the boy would be separated from his parents? What if I had been on my porch instead in my third floor bedroom? Would I have offered him to come sit with me until his parents came looking? I would like to think so, but my thoughts offer me no comfort anyway. The boy is lost and his parents cannot find where he has gone to. About an hour passes, and I hear nothing more. My thoughts of the situation fade as I continue working. Another half hour or so later, I again hear the mother's voice in the distance from another direction still calling out the boy's name... I pray to God that their paths cross. Thanks to the dark alleyway outside my window, I have been a strange observer of this situation, and I will never know of it's conclusion.