Neighborhood Boys by Stephen Black

Neighborhood Boys

by Stephen Black

The neighborhood boys used glue to coat their strings with powdered glass. They’d kitefight from the tops of buildings, jerking and swinging their arms and fists so their strings would cut the others’. Boys with no kites would wait in the field below to run and steal the losers. On Christmas Day a few years ago an old man in a coffee shop told me all this. I was there having lunch after Raj’s funeral. I walked home in the rain, past one of the buildings. I looked up and imagined kites. Some soaring with sparkling strings, some fluttering downward towards charging, screaming boys with sticks.

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Stephen Black is an artist and a writer. *I Ate Tiong Bahru* is the title of his latest book. From now til the of 2013 he is conducting an online art/writing project:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/175574394/Writing-on-Photographs You can also connect with Stephen at twitter:@bookmerah