BREAK-TIME SOUND

'Working' from 'home' (yet another person's home today), and it's break-time at the local school. I can tell because just the other side of the garden, a hundred children are noisily running around and shouting in the playground.

There's something wonderful about that sound. It's high-pitched hubbub: girls screaming and boys whacking a football; racing, running, jumping, shouting, pure, innocent energy. I should add it could also be girls whacking a football and boys screaming, but even the wokest hipsters out there would have to admit that it's predominantly still the other way round?

Anyway, it's a sound I haven't heard in a very long time. It's a precarious joy, almost on the verge of terrible, as you might get if the school were on fire - I'm not sure I could tell the difference - are those screams happy or terrified? I can't say. Are those shouts for someone who won't pass the ball or for someone who's about to fall off a roof? The precariousness is that on this side of the fence it's impossible to know. I imagine everything is fine though. Kids make a lot of noise.

I'm quietly tapping away in a dining room, laptop clicking on a polished table. I make no noises at all other than the keyboard. My legs are tucked under the dining room chair and Microsoft Teams is open in front of me. I am a grown-up, apparently.

You know, I kind of wish offices had break-times. Sure, I haven't actually worked in an office since March 13th, 2020, but I do remember. For grown-up break time, you go to the kitchen and leaf through a magazine about code developers, pretending you know what you're reading. Or you chat about holidays, or curse the vending machine, or refill your coffee and tut. No-one goes outside for skipping and football.

I suppose some did. Younger ones perhaps? Only they switched the football and skipping for a lunchtime gym sesh. They used to come back to the office with wet hair and bulging gym bags. I doubt they screamed and shouted like little kids though. Or perhaps they did.

I get it. Biology has long ago determined that children have excess energy. That's why in the late 1980s it was me running around like a loon in the playground, and now, I'm tip-tapping away on a computer in a quiet room, with no desire to get extra sweaty.

Anyway. Part of me thinks it would be nice to intersperse my working day with fifteen minutes of energy out there. Maybe a little shout and a scream? I'm pretty sure I know some people for whom that would do the world of good.