One Night on the Jungle Gym

CW: This piece contains themes of mental health and some profanity. Viewer discretion is advised.

“How’d you get to the top?” 

“Climbed.”

A boy about my age dangles his legs through one of the holes at the top of the old jungle gym. It’s thrice as high as the ones in the little kids’ playground, so much so that the leaves of the trees just about kiss it. Its shiny steel bars are blanketed in a thick layer of rust and grime that flakes when you touch it. Nevertheless, this boy sits at the top without a care in the world, seemingly oblivious to the fact it could collapse with a reasonable gust of wind. I want nothing more than to slap the stupid smirk off of his face. 

“That’s the point of a jungle gym,” he remarks. “You climb to the top.”

I bite back, “Easier said than done, y’know. I’ve been trying for years. I can barely get past the lower bit.”

“It’s all about motivation,” the boy replies matter-of-factly.

“That’s also easier said than done.”

The boy’s eyebrows raise slightly. I grip the cold steel bars of the jungle gym.

“It is?” He asks, to which I nod.

Putting my foot on the first rung, I answer, “Of course. Who could ever hold the motivation to do anything in a world like this?”

The boy’s dangling legs slow to almost a complete stop. My free hand fumbles for another piece of steel to grip, finally settling on one just above my first hand. I push my other foot off the ground and promptly wedge it on a rung. The metal bites through the worn soles of my sneakers as if trying to shove me back onto the ground. On any other day, I would let it.

The boy speaks again. “How so?”

I swing my head up to see this boy. Curtains of sandy-blonde hair shield his eyes, and his fair skin seems to glow in the moonlight. I contemplate snapping his twig-ass neck.

“How so?” I scoff, pulling myself up onto a new rung as my hand fumbles for it. “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve never been so devoid of motivation that even getting up to toss an empty water bottle seems like an impossible task? You’ve never been so drained of energy that you’re falling asleep in every advanced class you attend? Are you fucking serious?” 

My grip on the steel bars tightens. The next grab and pull sparks a burning sensation in my hands and an unstable feeling in my feet. I recheck the bottom, but the grass is still close enough to tumble back into, fail yet again, and finally quit for real.

“Oh,” the boy breathes. After a moment, he adds, “I thought a lack of motivation was the only issue.”

“Are we still talking about jungle gyms?” I grunt, shoving myself up to another few rungs. My right foot slips through the hole between the rungs, yanking me back down toward the grass. My leg is shaking as I scramble to secure my footing again, 

“Sure,” the boy answers, “but I play volleyball, too, and my practices have been complete ass. Just convinced myself I wasn’t motivated enough.”

“Are you demotivated,” I ask, finally replacing my foot on its rung, “or are you burnt out?”

The boy falls quiet. My foot squeaks on the steel and nearly loses its place once again. I steady it and scan for other places to grab. Cautiously, I peel my hand off its place, sending my body into panic mode as my balance wavers. I snatch the same rung again, fireworks of fear exploding in my mind

“Fuck it. I still can’t get it,” I mutter, ready to jump off the jungle gym and back to the bottom like always.

“How would I know if I’m burnt out?” The boy’s voice breaks up my thought process, and my grip tightens with a strange anger.

“Jesus Christ, my motivation to get up there is going to be so I can deck you in the face! What sort of stupid fucking question is that?!” 

My foot flies up to another rung, and I pull myself closer to the top yet again. My hands burn as if they’re holding a hot stove. I don’t understand why I’m mad at this boy— maybe it’s his plastic-looking hair or the stupid smile that’s fallen from his face, or perhaps it’s the fact he’s unknowingly ruined my night’s plans.

“Being burnt out is staring at the assignments you have to complete and barely being able to place your fingers on the keyboard,” I shout. “It’s being so goddamn exhausted that starving is more appealing than making food, but it could also be that finishing a bag of chips is more appealing than putting the rest away for later! It’s repeatedly getting shoved backward into the same ditch. It’s asking yourself why the fuck anything matters!”

My short, jagged nails dig into the grimy steel, and the grass is far from my feet, reaching into the still, night air, presumably for me. 

“Can it be half-hoping that you get concussed with the ball so you don’t need to keep playing, even though you thought you loved the game?” The boy asks quietly.

“Bet it could,” I answer, “but I’m not a doctor.”

“You talk like it’s from experience and not just WebMD.”

A cold, sick wave of shame washes over my body, weakening my grip on the jungle gym. I cast my gaze to the silent grass below, imprisoned by steel bars yet still somehow able to see the sun. 

“You are talking from experience, aren’t you?” The boy prompts.

“Like I said before,” I sigh, “who can hold motivation in a world like this?”

“How are advanced classes?” He asks.

“Hell.” I glance around for another bar to grab— though my hands burn and my legs are trembling, it’s the only thing keeping my mind off of my original plans. 

“My parents want me in those,” the boy says, “but all those kids look so miserable.”

“Looks better for college,” I explain, finally deciding on a bar to pull myself onto. “Doesn’t mean you’re any smarter than anybody else.”

“Is that the burnout talking or the self-confidence?”

“Like I’m going to spill my woes to you,” I reply curtly, but the vile creatures of my thoughts take hold of my conscious mind before I can stop them.

“You know, it’s kind of hard to have any sort of self-confidence when all you’ve heard is you could be, should be better, and that your ideas will never make you money, so you’ll end up living in the gutter in your future. There’s no point in hobbies if a college won’t be interested in them, nor is there a point in school if you’re not at the top of your classes. What happens is you just internalize all of that, and everything you can’t do is like taking a dagger to your heart because you can’t hit the expectations you’ve been stuck trying to reach all your life!”

My voice breaks, finally halting the rant brewing in my head since I was eleven. My vision blurs like an out-of-focus camera. My forehead falls lightly onto the dirty bar above me. I don’t know if I’m any further up to the top than before I began to rant. I’m not sure if I care anymore. 

“I can only imagine how much that wrecks your self-confidence,” the boy sighs, his voice a whisper, though it sounds a little closer.

“Yeah?” I mutter shakily, tears slipping down my face and down on another bar. “It sucks.”

“My parents are divorced,” the boy mutters after a stretch of silence. “We were no Hallmark movie family —maybe I should’ve seen it coming— but it’s such a fucking disaster. All that fighting does numbers on your perceptions of people and situations, not to mention the literal fucking abandonment when suddenly your mom’s out the door and refusing to return. I mean—” his voice cracks, and he tries again—” it’s hard to talk to people who might just leave, and even harder to get remotely close to anybody who could just up and leave you alone again.”

“I’m sure that’s doing wonders for your anxiety,” I reply sarcastically.

The boy utters a dry, shaky laugh. “Tell me about it.” 

“Do you still want to deck me in the face?” He suddenly asks.

“Huh?”

A thin, pale hand enters my vision, and I flick my gaze up into a pair of curious eyes the color of powdered cocoa. Wisps of soft-looking, sandy-blonde hair fall freely around them (definitely not plastic). Behind him, branches thick with bright green leaves sway softly in the breeze. The dark sky peaks through them. The boy’s lips turn up into a soft smile. 

“Well?” He prompts. 

My own lips twitch into a half-smile as I shake my head and take his hand. He pulls me up to the top while I push myself up from the bars. For unknown reasons, the steel at the top of the jungle gym is woven into a flat surface. I maneuver myself to sit beside the boy, sliding my legs through one of the remaining large holes like him. My numb hands sting pleasantly on the cool steel. 

“You can add that to your list of victories,” he hums.

“Guess so,” I smile.

A comfortable quiet settles between us, broken only by the gentle rustling of leaves in the night’s cool breeze. Stars scatter the dark sky ahead of us like glitter. The light of the moon casts a glow on the park’s old trees and shiny playground equipment, and the lake to the right of the playground shimmers. 

“Did you come here to climb the jungle gym?” The boy questions in a low voice.

“No. You?”

“No.”

“What did you come for?”

The folded papers we pull from our pockets are answer enough. Our eyes lock, my blue ones in his brown, and we slowly slide the inked-up papers away— we would not do this tonight. 

“Brett.” I offer my hand.

“Hugo,” the boy replies, taking it.

“Seems you’re not alone anymore, huh?”

Hugo’s eyes shimmer with tears.

“Yeah,” he whispers, smiling. “It seems so.”