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Droplets of water darted off the ball as it landed into the pond. In the park, the sun had a glaring light and lit up the grass so much, it seemed almost lime. The sky looked so clean due to the absence of the grey, misty clouds and in the background, the constant tittering of the birds' song became hypnotic. Couples were either sprawled across their spouse's jumpers or they were casually perched against their picnic basket, filled to the rim with champagne and strawberries, talking nicely but secretly awaiting a kiss. In the air, the smell of barbeques and mother's sun cream was quite vivid, whilst small, odd patches of ground missed the tread of the public, due to dispersed splats of sticky ice cream, which were slowly drying deeper and deeper into the soil. Small children, shoeless and tightly gripping random implements such as twigs, dog leads, sandwiches or their siblings toy, toddled as fast as they could around different families whilst laughing, whereas for some, they found that they had made the regrettable mistake of teasing some stranger's dog.

One child, quite fair in complexion with green eyes and a crusty nose, sat quite contently under a willow tree, humming to himself whilst splashing his miniscule toes off the edge of the weathered river bank. A bee buzzed quite close by. The boy took no notice. A fish surfaced and a kingfisher hovered for a few seconds then quickly swept away. Still the boy took no notification of his surroundings apart from a small, yet useful size twig that rested steadily next to the Willow's trunk. He picked it up, viewed the tip and started to write in the bank's grit. In the sand he wrote a boy's name, supposedly his own, a heart and then another name. A girl's. The boy seemed no more than eight years old and stared dreamily at this anonymous second name. He was wearing a white cotton vest, the corner of which was tucked into his trousers and the rest loose in the breeze. One of the straps of his red braces hung loosely off his small, hand sized shoulders and the dusty-blue corduroy trousers, surprisingly remained undisturbed from dirt. As he leant gently back he accidentally rested his left hand on his brown, leather sandals which he had removed earlier. His head jolted sideways to see what it was, but as soon as he realised he laid right back with his right hand supporting the back of his head, still waving that specific twig from side to side above himself. The weeping Willow shaded his eyes from the sun's glare, sequentially; he dozed off in blissful solitude.

Screams rang through the air, moreover the smell of gas and smoke was suddenly being emitted from a distance not far off. The boy, who not only minutes before went to sleep in his peaceful surroundings, was being firmly shaken by a large figure of a man. His voice was gruff his image blurred. The park which was so bright and joyful appeared grey, and smoky. To the boy the clouds were lower than they had ever been but this was simple childish ignorance. The couples that were resting before were now scattered. Lifeless but hand in hand. Numbers of the other small children were lost forever. The boy's vision cleared. His eyes enlarged and his little fists clenched securely on to the hefty, stranger's jacket. For what he was so accustomed to seeing, had disappeared. He was told a bomb had struck and many innocent lives had been lost. The names in the river bank lay untouched and the twig was also left unscathed, neatly tucked under one of the surfaced Willow roots. It was 1914. The rumoured war had deplorably begun.