"I simply adore children," Dimitri said, smiling broadly to the stranger sitting at the opposite corner of the park bench.

            "Yeah, me too," the man replied conversationally, scratching at the infestation of stubble swarming his chin. They both turned toward the bucolic rise of sun sweet grass before them where a little boy was counting down from fifty. His grubby hands concealed his eyes as two other boys fled for cover.

            "They are such charming little creatures— so full of life!"

            "Yeah, yeah. I know what you mean...You got any?"

            "Oh yes," Dimitri replied. "Three actually. Two girls and a boy, about that one's age." He nodded to the little boy who was craftily skipping over every other number as he counted down.

            "Forty-six, forty-four," the boy called out softly. The other boys were too busy hiding themselves to notice.

            "What about you, sir?" Dimitri continued. "Do you have any children of your own?"

            "Me?...Um, yeah, I got a couple."

            "May I ask their names?"

            "Donnie and Marie." The man shifted his weight on the bench, leaning in towards the sidewalk in front of them.

            "You are a fan of the Osmond family, I take it," Dimitri said, a gentle smirk in his voice.

            "Oh, yeah," the man laughed briefly as he fingered the fraying cuff of his shirtsleeve. "The wife was."

            "I see."

            "How about you? What are your kids named?"

            "Thirty-eight, thirty-six," the little boy continued. Dimitri could see the gaps between his pudgy fingers widen as he circled in his spot on the grass.  

            "Frida, Agnetha, and little Bjorn," Dimitri replied, grinning.

            "You Swedish or something?" The man leaned back in the bench and scratched his belly. Dimitri could see grass stains on the knees of the man's pants.

            "Something like that. Family names, you know."

            "Uh huh, uh huh," the man said, glancing over his right shoulder towards a dark copse farther along the path where one of the boys, sporting a bright new pair of white canvas sneakers, had gone to hide. Dimitri supposed the shoes would not remain white for long.

            "Thirty-two, thirty, twenty-six..." The little boy was getting bolder.

            "Any of these yours?" the man asked and nodded toward the clutch of heavy brush where the boy with the white sneakers had buried himself. His right knee pivoted propulsively atop the accelerating piston of his leg.

            "None," Dimitri replied. He noticed the man's shoes were caked with mud. "How about you?

            "Nope. They're safe with their mom."

            "Lovely afternoon, isn't it?"

            "Twenty-two, eighteen—"

            "Yeah, beautiful," the man said and arched his back, stretching his muscles like a  sated dog rising to sniff at another fallen scrap of Sunday dinner. He stifled a yawn.

            "Do you live around here," Dimitri asked, while scanning the huddle of squat shrubbery hunkered down against the shoulder of the stream where the second boy had just concealed himself. He could just discern the bright red top of the boy's hooded sweatshirt peaking through the thickest green bramble nearest the bank. The nearly inaudible cackle of a woman echoed across a small stone bridge from a distance down the far side of the stream.

            "Uptown," the man said. "I live Uptown."

            "Ah, yes."

            "You?"

            "Downtown," Dimitri replied, checking his watch.

            "Yeah? Nice."

            "Twelve, ten-"

            "Well, I better get going," the man said, clapping both of his knees with his hands in anticipation of rising.

            "Nine, eight—"

            "Yes, it is getting rather late."

            "Seven, six—"

            "The wife will be wanting me," the man said.

            "Five, four—"

            "Work beckons, after all."

            "Three, two, one." The boy uncovered his eyes in a rush. "I'm coming for you," he screamed.

            Neither man moved. They watched in silence as the little boy twirled around in place for a brief moment and then, with a snort and a giggle, scampered off across the glade, skirting the hedge grove which shot like an arrow away from the bench where they were both still seated. He disappeared into the immense stand of tall pines that stood guard on the far side of the park.

            The man was the first to break the silence.

            "So, ah, which way you headed?"

            "Downtown," Dimitri said, nodding over his left shoulder towards the stream.

            "Uptown for me," the man gestured up the path towards the copse.

            The two figures regarded one another. They smiled briefly.

            "It was a pleasure meeting you, my friend," Dimitri said, bowing slightly as he rose from the bench.

            "Likewise, Pal," the man said, nodding to Dimitri. He leapt to his feet and bounded up the path.

            Dimitri inhaled a fresh gulp of spring air and glided toward the water. He tilted his head upwards to revel in the teasing fingers of sunlight as they tickled his face through the branches of the trees, the soft giggling of the brook before him, the faint rustling of leaves far behind.