Ramadan ’16: Runaway

June 2016

Someone ran away from his mum today, in a busy hypermarket, among the scores of toy aisles he disappeared yet close enough to the entrance/exit so that the mum began to panic. Yes, our little athlete, oblivious to danger and my high anxiety, followed his nose with extremely quick legs. It happened so quickly: I was putting away the toys he threw on the floor, back onto the shelves, lost sight of him for all of a few moments, looked up to find him…gone.

Yelling his name in both languages didn’t make a difference; he didn’t respond. Aisle upon aisle I scoured. Nothing. Caught sight of the store exit and felt sick to the stomach. Grabbed the nearest assistant and told him my boy is lost, missing in the store. A kind lady helped me look while other store workers began the lookout for a two year old boy with curly blonde hair wearing a white shirt. All I could see was my boy running into the wider mall and becoming lost to me. My eyes must have looked HUGE as I turned toward a worker approaching me saying he’d spotted my boy ‘over there, in the cars and trucks corner.’

Kingsley was in heaven touching the handle bars, crankset and chains on a kiddie bike. I knelt next to him calmly and he smiled at me, but ready to disappear again. A powerful poo smell, freshly baked, hit my brain. Ahhh, should have known: he runs when it’s poo time and to be fair to him, he had given me warning (fîge mammá!! He demands of me in his finest Greek to ‘go away’ as he is making poos). Plus we had just had lunch in the Food Hall. Should have known my little Ramadan runaway needed the restroom!

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