Short Story: Get Away From My Swing

by Becca L.

I don’t even know what the park is called. To me it has always been and will always be the park with the bed red swing. When I was little, we lived far away from the park with bed read swing. Of course, when you are four, two blocks away is a whole other country,. Going to the park with the big red swing was a treat, a privilege and, most of all, a bribe. All my mom had to do was say “I’ll take you to the park with the big red swing”, and I was automatically an angel.

The park with the big red swing is one of the few playgrounds that have yet to be childproofed. I have seen many wooden playgrounds replaced with “safer” plastic and metal contraptions that are about as much fun as watching paint dry. Playing at the park with the bed red swing is wonderfully risky. Before I can get to any dangerous sides or bridges, I must first travel through the catacombs, a maze of steps and corridors at ground level with delightfully low ceilings. If I am accosted by the Banana Monster or ball of flame, I’m either right on track or hopelessly lost. To reach daylight, I must duck under one last overhang. Then I must choose to go right or left. Right will lead me to a plastic and metal side withal kinds of bumps and dips that gets viciously hot in summer. I believe it may even curl. Left will lead me through more wooden steps and alcoves, eventually approaching a bridge. Believe it or not, the bridge is made of logs chained together, and it bounces! I know, I know, “it can’t actually bounce”, you say, “All the bouncy bridges have been glued to keep from bouncing”, you say. Somehow my bridge has escaped the fearful parents bent on childproofing childhood. After the bridge, I can go down another plastic and metal slide, wide enough for three children to zoom down at once to land in a tangle of sneakers and scuffed elbows and knees at the bottom. Or I can continue through a wooden maze, either departing on a “tree” of chain covered plastic tubes, which is brutally difficult to climb up or down (I have yet to manage it), or squeezing down a narrow ladder through a narrower opening. Right across from my exit is a very convincing “plane”. It is really just half a nose with a wheel attached but I spin the wheel with a soft “vroom, vroom” anyway. I then leap onto the “boat”, a wooden platform attached to wooden beams with chains covered in plastic tubes. Once on, I can rock it violently and struggle to remain standing, or sway gently as I scan the horizon for pirates. Spotting a sea monster, I abandon ship and run over to the car. To get into the car. To get into the car I must climb up three tires that smoosh under my feet, leaving a one and a half foot gap between my foot and its destination. Undaunted, I swing my leg and barely mange to get in. of course, whoever is accompanying me gets shotgun. This soon bores me, so I stumble down the tires on the other side and race to the tire “staircase” that leads to the next wood monstrosity. At the top, I can go through a monkey face and down a slide that may have been orange in a former life, or continue through or over the diamond shaped tunnel. My philosophy is they wouldn’t have made a tunnel if they meant you to go over it, so I go through. On the other side is a staircase that leads to the Gauntlet, a plastic- covered chain attached to a wood wall to shimmy down, and a ladder that leads to the treasure kept under watchful eye of frog. I always choose the Gauntlet.

The Gauntlet really isn’t much. It’s a bridge between two bits of equipment made of tire “cubes”. However, to cross I must crawl around tire edges or step across the whole tire. I will be well rewarded when I reach the other side. I may hurry down the fore pole, slide down the mine shaft or slip down a tire enclosed hole to a tire swing below. Though it does not spin, the tire swings so violently it doesn’t need to. I race across the mulch, through a wooden doorway, and quickly visit the Tire Monster. I’m not sure what it was supposed to be, but it is made of tires and it swings. I do not tarry here, because I am almost at my destination: The Beg Red Swing when I was in the park. I sneer at the straps someone has supplied and wait for whichever parent brought me to catch up. They arrive, and I command them to push. I have never found anything as much fun as my Big Red Swing.

The park with the Big Red Swing held other amusements, to be sure. There was a strange contraption somewhat reminiscent of seesaw, but with four arms instead of two, and each ending in one of those bouncy animal instead of an actual seat. I know there were a duck, and a sheep, and a horse, but I cannot remember the fourth one. Further up the field is wheel of Doom. The wheel is old and metal and leans to one side. No matter how close to the middle I sit, I would always be pulled to the edges. As long as I hold on, I shouldn’t fall off. I am proud to say I never have.

My park with The Big Red Swing has not totally escaped the overprotective parents. The Wheel of Doom was taken out years ago, and all things bouncy and animal like soon fallowed. Fields and concession stands were added, and the Park with the Big Red Swing became an actual park instead of the playground-with –a-field it once was.

I outgrew my swing, but I still loved my park. After all, you never outgrow slides. All was well with the world. Then disaster struck. I recently visited my park With The Big Red Swing. Could not believe what I saw. There, so smugly filling My Beg Red Swing’s place, was a safe, sturdy, black baby swing. I searched the whole playground. Surely it has only been moved. Alas, I was clinging to false hope. My swing was gone. My worst fears had come true. My childhood had finally been child proofed.