Kids and swings
...ll follow you.” The boy would run to the swing by himself. He ran threw puddles soaking his black Velcro shoes. The people at the park would look at him and wonder why a little boy was all alone. He would go down the baby slide. Then he would climb to the top of the giant slide with the bump in the middle. It was part of his warm up routine and the people wanted to know where the supervision was. They wanted to know how such a small child could go down the big slide with no one to catch him at the bottom. II. The man sat on the swing and looked at the slide with the bump in the middle. He sat motionless. The slide was painted red when he was a boy but now it was silver and the sun reflected brightly off of it. He looked at the sandbox where he used to engineer seas and rivers. The other kids would build castles. They would ask him, “Why do you dig holes and make shapes out of them?” “The sea is called Galee.” “Your nose is red,” they would say. “You’re weird because you don’t build castles.” “There are no kingdoms built of sand,” The boy would say. “You’re weird, you’re weird.” The man sat on the swing and looked up at the knot that tied the rope to the branch. He sat motionless because you can’t pump a tire swing. He looked passed the knot and into the sun. His nose was permanently red from rays of sun. The sun turned his face red and made wrinkles in his skin. The man loved each new wrinkle that the sun blessed him with and he refused to turn away. As a boy he could only take the other kids for so long. They would kick sand in his seas and rivers while the other parents watched. The boy would get up and run to the swing. He would sit there motionless. His feet could not even reach the dirt but his hands could clench the rope. He would clench and wait. Then the machine would finally show up and give him a blank stare. III. One day the boy was sitting on the swing waiting. The machine walked up to him and said, “Trent look at the clouds, it is going to rain soon.” “Grampa Grampa can we swing, can we swing?” The machine started pushing. The black tire swung Back and forth and sometimes in circles because a swing with one rope spins easily out of control. The boy held on tight and his heart pumped. He knew that once the swinging had begun it would never end. He spit at the highest point to see how far it would go. Then as the machine had predicted the rain started to pour. “Grampa Grampa put up your hood,” He yelled. The machine kept pushing him. He pushed harder and harder until the tire came close to flipping. The boy spit felt some vomit come into his throat. He spit it to see how far it would fly. “Grampa Grampa push harder,” The rain came down and soaked the machine. The boy was dizzy but the rain made him alive. He looked at all the kids in the park running to find shelter. Soon it was only him and the machine. The ra...