Big splash

We were driving home from Cailan's rehearsal for The Music Man when a shimmering flash caught both our eyes. From the backseat Cailan called out "The splash ground is going!" Since we were headed home with nothing in particular to do in the hour before bedtime, I asked him if he would like to go there. Of course he said yes, so I found a parking spot and we headed over to the fountains.

The splash ground in downtown Grand Junction is made up of fountains in four concentric circles. At the center is the one which shoots the tallest, broadest plume of water, with a ring of not-quite-as-tall plumes around it. The comes a circle of tiny jets that shoot straight up in a slender stream. At the outside are three thicker jets that cast arcs of water towards the center. The fountains don't all go off at once; they fire intermittently and I can't tell if they go randomly or in a very long pattern. The height of each jet varies too - sometimes there will be a plume 5 feet or more, other times just a burble that barely reaches above the ground.

Cailan kicked off his shoes and rushed towards the fountains. He was tentative at first, skipping around the outside and just brushing his fingertips against the sprays of water. He soon became bolder, darting between the water jets. Eventually he was drenched. His hair was hanging around his face in damp tendrils, his orange t-shirt clinging to his body. His sopping cut-off jeans slapped against his tiny deer-like legs. He brought his glasses to me, since their water-blurred lenses were no longer any use to him. He wore his socks the whole time, one white and one turquoise, a hole in the heel of the turquoise sock becoming more and more apparent as the evening wore on.

He played the fountains like percussion instruments, beating the plumes with the flats of his hands like bongos, plucking the arcs of water as if they were harp strings, tapping the burbles with his feet in time to some inner song of joy. Then the fountains became monsters, and he went after them with slashing hands, high kicks, whirling spins with outstretched arms, dizzy, shivering, and laughing.

A pause. A snapshot. A little boy framed by water droplets turned to spherical rainbows in the intense evening sunlight, bending over to touch his own reflection on the damp concrete.