The red ball.

The one they had at recess.  For kickball.  For general mayhem.  The one that inflated and warmed in the sun.  The one you took to the nuts a couple times.  The one that embedded your braces in your lips.  The one you could really sink your foot into.  Crosshatched and beautiful.  Remember that ball.  That ball is your world.  Everything you ever needed was embodied by that ball.  But you got greedy.  You got monied.  You stopped empathizing with Holden Caufield and realized he was the phoniest, whiny-bitchiest one in the book.  Much rather be friends with Stradlater.  Fuck, even Ackley.  But man, you could kick the shit out of that ball.  And that used to be more important than almost anything.   And then you moved on to drugs and parties and girls and bullshit jobs you hated, hoping in some dark, cobwed infested part of your mind that the kickball was still waiting.  But it is not.