Playing Through the Fence
There was an old couple who lived on the other side of my backyard fence, they had grandkids who were a bit older than me or younger than me so we weren’t friends.
When I was three or four years old I met a kid who was visiting them, across the fence, he told me they were his grandparents and I would talk with him through the fence.
It was awkward and we would mostly just sit there and play with our own toys in silence or just look at each other for hours, a lot like the two kids in the boy in the striped pyjamas. His name was Brian and every time I played with him his grandfather would give me a weird look.
We moved cities shortly after and years later I brought it up with my brothers and my mom and they don’t remember the neighbors having a grandkid my age, they remember the older kids and the younger ones but not anyone my age.
They don’t remember me ever playing with anyone out there, they don’t remember anything about it at all. It still freaks me out to think about that.