The Last Kite of the Evening

All afternoon the sky over the rooftops had been full of kites. Red ones, green ones, kites with long tails, kites that dived and fought. Now the light was fading. One by one, the kites were reeled in, and the children were called down for dinner.

Only one kite was left. It was a small yellow kite, and it belonged to a boy named Imran.

"Five more minutes," Imran called down the stairs.

The yellow kite hung high above the town. From up there it could see everything. It saw the lamps coming on in the lanes, like beads on a string. It saw the smoke rising straight up from the kitchens. It saw the river, pale and wide, and the bridge with a slow train crossing it.

The wind, which had tugged and pushed all afternoon, was growing gentle. It no longer wanted to play. It only held the kite, the way a hand holds a sleeping bird.

The first star came out beside the kite. Then the moon rose, big and low and the colour of butter. For a while the yellow kite and the yellow moon hung side by side in the sky.

Imran sat down on the warm roof, with the string wound around his finger. He was not flying the kite any more. He was just holding on to the evening.

His mother came up the stairs. She did not scold. She sat beside him and looked up.

"It is tired," she said. "Kites get tired too."

Imran nodded. Slowly he began to wind the string. The kite came down without a struggle, lower and lower, past the star, past the tops of the trees, turning softly, until it settled in his hands like a leaf.

He carried it downstairs and stood it in the corner of his room, where he could see it from his bed.

In the dark, the yellow kite leaned against the wall and rested. Tomorrow there would be wind again.