Blessings

The carriage had sat there for so long that they had completely forgotten the day , it had been towed there , and left .

 Getting wet in the rain , baking in the blistering sun , its shiny window panes , shattered one by one , the paint peeled off , and grass grew in patches on the roof . The doors were locked , but boys , being boys , had discovered a way of wriggling themselves inside the carriage , and playing hide and seek , producing ghost sounds , putting their lips against closed window shutters . Wind whistled through gaps in the floor , and they called to each other through the bathroom door. 

Some times , they would be spied by some worker in the work yard , and stopping in midst of sending showers of sparks down , pushing his welding helmet up , a multi lingual oath would be hurled in their direction , and they would scamper off. The oath would be untranslatable, as the workers came in from other states. But the intent was clear , and the boys didn’t want trouble . 

It was fun , so long as it lasted , which was their entire childhood . Both were roughly eight years old , and the coach was their plaything , for so long as they remembered. 

On a sunny day , some workers , in their greasy overalls, came picking their teeth with blades of grass , and looked at the coach . The doors were opened , the roosting pigeons chased out , and they pointed and talked . Talked and looked at the coach from all the sides . They looked at it , touched it , knocked it here and there , as if it were a cattle for sale . 

That afternoon , two white clad , official looking people , came and saw the coach and made some important scribblings in the notepads they held in their hands. 

The very next day ,the work started. They came armed with sheets of tin , to weld with yellow rubber gloved hands , and acetylene torches that singed and smoked and sent zinging sparks . Carpenters hammered away at the seats inside . New seats were installed , and shutters repaired . Cans of paint lay waiting on the grass. 

Sitting far way , dangling their legs from a concrete staircase on the platform , one boy asked the other ” What would have happened actually ?" 

They were quite troubled at the transformation their plaything was undergoing . 

The other, older kid, thought for some time  , chewing his wad of tobacco , stolen from his uncle's pouch, then spat  thin , yellow spittle onto the tracks , before expounding " Its got blessings , you fool !!"