Jones is happy. He stands on the sidewalk in his mountie hat smiling and waving a little blue lightsaber. He is fascinated with the dandelions. Some are yellow flowers, others are the heads of men, all covered with bushy, white hair. “Like Santa,” Jones points out. But the rain falls on the just and unjust alike, and the lightsaber scatters their seeds across the lawns of Toronto just as God had planned.

Sidling up against fences, marvelling at cracks in the sidewalk and dogs in the distance, Jones is in no hurry. Let time adapt to him, not the other way around. And on this journey he sees some purple flowers that have just blossomed. He notices this. How yesterday they were sleeping in green nests, and today they are awake. He runs over and hugs the new flowers. Inhales so deeply it seems the flower must live within him now, too. And he smiles. “This makes me happy,” he says simply. He then breaks into song, “Flower Song, Oh, Flower Song, I Want To Sing The Flower Song.” And he sings the rest of the way to daycare, and when we get there he is still singing. His classmates run to greet us, swarm Jones, who still singing, vanishes into the happy pack.

No longer visible, just his singing now.

The rain falling so very lightly, the world freshly green.