With each passing day, trying to get up early in the morning became harder and harder.

Seven a.m. was time for school and we were late again. In a minute we hurried down from the seventh floor to the parking ground for our scooter. Life is short so we’re always in a hurry.

Dews had wetted my scooter’s seat again . When I was going to? mop it with my elbow the way as I always did, a ripened pink seed-capsule from a golden-rain tree caught my eyes. It clung silently to the side of the wet seat and, it would be blown away by the slightest wind in any minute . Maybe it would fly up gracefully like a delicate butterfly in sunshine , but it wouldn’t last long . That was certain and what not certain was its destination, which was not controlled by itself.

I looked up unconsciously to see where this pretty capsule came from, then I found that big golden-rain tree which had been there like forever.? The tree was so huge towering over almost the whole parking area. How unbelievably, that I had passed under it almost every day and managed never to notice its existence.

Now it was going through its seed-ripening period. Clusters and clusters of the pink capsules reached out from the top of the branches ,like raised-up flags trying? to show people this colorful season. And when the wind blew over them, they sounded merrily like millions of little bells.

Golden-rain trees bloom in summer,? and in their full blossom, hundreds of the tiny golden flowers cluster together into fluffy stands hanging down from the high branches ,and if you happen to peep it from afar, you would mistake those flowery strands for some thick golden ropes . In sunny days, those golden flowers shimmer like delicate golden flakes and when it’s windy, they come down like golden raindrops.

As we were riding out for school, my mind went to somewhere else. It seemed millions and millions years ago when I was running in circles tirelessly under those trees in my hometown, especially in those summer days when the yellow flowers danced down like golden rains . I recalled that one autumn I came by a broken branch that was fully covered with those pink capsules. I counted myself so lucky that day. When I was carrying the branch back home I felt like I was bringing back a long-lost treasure.? I arranged it in one corner of our shabby house.? In those days my mood was as pretty as our room looked. I didn’t throw the branch out until the last streak of pink faded away .

Where are those golden days gone? Is everything coming and going just quietly and quickly like it never existed? Suddenly I was filled with a miserable sense of sorrow and helplessness.