Striking a Chord

"She walked past wrecked gardens that were petal-littered, everything rained down onto gravel, walked home down Sunnyside past children who where playing in cold little groups at the fronts of verandahs, passed by four little guys of nine or ten as she was walking along deep in thought on the subject of her life and what she would do with it ("What'll it be then, madam?" "One rye and lithium." "Right you are, madam, one rye and lithium coming right up. . .") when one of the little boys experimentally sang out to her, "Hello, bitch!"
Although she knew that these words were no more unfriendly than the barks of an overexcited and even friendly little dog, she was too preoccupied to think of a clever reply and so she only hurried on by, speaking almost in mutter to say, "Hello, bitch bitch. . ."
But even this small acknowledgement seemed to excite her tiny tormenter, she could hear him cry out to the others in a squeaky and thrilled voice, "Did you hear that? Did you hear what that lady said? I said hello bitch and she said hello bitch bitch, did you hear her?"
She turned on them to speak to the boy who'd called out to her. "Honey, why don't you just try to grow up?"
After a moment of stunned silence, they all followed behind her, dancing and chanting on their cold little stick legs: We don't want to grow up! We don't want to grow up! We don't want to grow up!
She supposed she could tell them it was a universal lament."

~Elisabeth Harvor, Excessive Joy Injures the Heart