Playground

PLAYGROUND

By Andy Pearson © 2024

Their lips came apart slowly. Each molecule gripping tightly to its opposite.  When they finally, reluctantly separated, they were just apart. Opening their eyes,  both wondered, did this just happen?

He leaned back with his hands on the two chains holding the flexible seat under her. She gripped the links under his hands and looked up. Looking at his happy, confused face, she arched back and swung slightly toward him. Releasing his grip, he stepped back and pushed on her extended feet sending her further away as her legs curled under the seat. When she reached the apex, she uncurled her legs and leaned back. The swing accelerated downward. She laughed with her red hair streaming behind her.  

The man stepped back as he reached up and grabbed her outstretched legs. Running with her toward the bottom of the arc, he stepped aside and she rocketed past him heading for a new high point. At the crown, she leaned back to view the planet upside down.

“There you are?” she giggled happily as gravity took control and pulled her back along the chain-proscribed parabola. She felt his hands grip her waist and give her a push back toward the sky.

“Here I am,” he said, reluctantly parting with her as the forces sent her upward. He watched her legs shoot skyward, toes pointing straight up.  At the moment of apogee, she was weightless. He watched her red hair floating in the sky and saw her blue jeans rise slightly from the rubber seat containing her.

She swung groundward and he pushed one more time. She kicked hard and the chains loosened at the apex. For one moment, she was refusing gravity. But, gravity reasserted and the chains gave a little chunk–clink noise as the mutually attracting force was suddenly back, but they held.

Stepping back, he watched as she came to earth and the swing stopped with her feet scratching in the two groves worn in the dirt below the swing. She stood up and looked again at him.  

“So…,” he began.

“Look, monkey bars,” she said grabbing his hand and pulling him behind her.

“Monkey bars?” he said acquiescing to the linear acceleration.

She let go and grabbed a piece of the dome shape made of fitted pipe bound together in a spider web fashion. She scrambled up the curve until she was sitting with her legs dangling into the open space underneath. He followed. When he was sitting next to her, shoulder to shoulder, he dangled his legs into the space. Each now looking a different direction.

“So…,” he started again.

“When I was younger, I could swing upside down by my knees,” she said tipping backward. Her red hair followed the arc of her head then her knees were skyward. He looked down at her and then tipped himself backward.

Hanging upside down, shoulder to shoulder, they gently oscillated as their faces reddened.  

“About what happened …,” he started in a slightly garbled voice.

She turned and looked at him, her hair hanging down. She watched his ball cap slip from his head and plop onto the dust under the dome.  

"When I was kid, I always wanted to be a gymnast. I tried and tried, but as you can see,” she said swinging her arms around herself, ”I am not the type. I loved swinging and climbing, but gymnastics never stuck.”

“Anyway,” he said twisting his head to see her. “I …”

“You know what else I liked as a kid?” she interrupted.

“What?”

“I liked teeter-totters.” She grabbed the bar near her knees and swung to the ground. Turning her head sideways, she peered at him and then scampered through the metal spider web.

He dropped to the ground and struck his head on a piece of steel web while straightening himself. Rubbing the spot and grabbing his hat, he slipped through the pipes to follow her. 

She was sitting legs akimbo on the end of a two-pipe teeter-tooter. The pipe was the same grey-silver steel pipe used to make the spider web and the swings. She had her hands on the small pegs alongside the pipes. Smiling at him, she nodded her head to the empty seat at the opposite end. He straddled the pipes and settled on the small seat. With his legs extended, they sat level with a small up-down bounce motion.

“I’m thinking that there might be a weight distribution issue with this simple machine. My end seems to be decidedly heavier,” he said as he bent his legs and she rose slightly in the air. He flexed his legs and she could touch the ground.

“Yes, I see that, but I wonder if I pushed off,” and she did and he allowed himself to sink to the ground. Once the motion stopped, he relaxed and the simple lever stayed fixed at his end.

“Now then,” he said looking up the slope at her. “About what happened.”

“That’s not fair,” she said with her legs swinging.

“Possibly not fair, but solid physics. So about what happened at the swings.”

She started to interrupt, but he held up one hand. 

“Looking up at you, I see the night’s first star. A light pushing through darkness.”

“I am not a star,” she said looking at the pipes.

“You shine light into my world. Thus, a star.”

She quietly pondered, as he was forming words. 

“But what about… you know?” she asked

“About?” he encouraged her.

“Can we still be, you know, us if what happened – happened?”

“First, what happened-happened and it was wonderful. Secondly, this could be us. Not the same us, a better us. A complete us.”

“But the us before. I can’t lose that us. You’ve become too important to lose.”

He looked up the incline and nodded. He flexed his legs and the lever began to change attitude. Then he stopped. He looked at her again, her legs still not reaching the ground. She glanced at the ground still out of reach and then she looked at him with a wondering expression. He relaxed his legs and her side rose.

“The before us will always be the before us.”

She looked down the angle at him.

“I know some things with certainty,” he said. ”I know that gravity is and will always be. I know that if I step off this simple machine, this lever, you will fall and yet you don’t look scared. You know I won’t drop you even though you know the potential energy of this equation. I know that I know me and I won’t drop you.”

He flexed his legs a bit and the teeter-totter rose at his end and dipped at her end. He let it move and then relaxed his legs, she rose again.

“There might be ups and downs, but there will be no moment I will drop you.”

“How do you know I won’t drop you,” she replied.

He pushed off and let her end ease to the ground. His feet were now hanging free as hers touched. The mass at his end paused at the top and he looked at her. She raised her feet and the lever slowly eased down in the opposite direction. 

“Because you didn’t,” he said when he was sitting on the ground.

“I didn’t. But this isn’t a physics equation.”

“No. It’s not. It’s infinitely more complicated and also more basic.”

“Oh?” she said.

“I can calculate the stresses and torques in this machine. I can figure out speeds and forces. But physics and mathematics stop at this,” he paused looking up at her. She examined his face as it went through more contortions while he tried to find words. Without taking his eyes off of her, he took a breath.

“I have been in love with you forever.”

She gazed. 

“I know that wasn’t poetic. They’re just simple words.”

“Forever?” she questioned.

“Forever. Time started for me when I saw you. I remember the moment.  You walked in with Linda. Remember, at Jeremy’s Christmas party. You were wearing a green sweater and red leggings. I remember you tied bells into the laces of your shoes. Every time you moved, there was a tinkling happy sound. You sat down and crossed your legs. The bells tinkled and rattled. You walked into the kitchen, bells. All through the night I knew where you were. I remember you didn’t notice me, but that was ok. I was in the same space and time as you and that was enough. Since then, every time I hear a bell, I think of you. There are a lot of bells in this world.“

She laughed.

“Why didn’t you say something? Something before now that is?”

He eased up and the lever rocked slightly.

“Well.  Ummm. I tried several times, but your orbit,” he said.

“That’s physics and math again. No more physics. No more math.”

“OK, but that’s where I feel the safest. I know the rules and they’re constant. No surprises. Well not many, that dark matter thing is still not working out right.”

“You’re delaying and talking physics again.”

“Right, right. Sorry. Why? Fear. Well, I was… It’s that … “

“I’m waiting,” she said.

“The fact that you always had a following,“ he croaked.

“A following? What is a following?”

“Well. Let’s be honest. You haven’t lacked for pursuers. There was always some guy pursuing you. I always felt like a free electron around- sorry, no physics. I didn’t think I could compete or have a chance. I was just happy to be around you, in your orb-  sorry, physics again.”

“So what happened tonight? Tonight you weren’t afraid.”

“I was… I am afraid. But I’m more afraid of not…  No matter how this moment-this night goes, I will forever hear bells. I know that.”

There was quiet. They could hear the occasional squeak of the swings moving gently in the breeze. 

“Tonight, while we sitting on the swings talking, I saw you sitting there. I mean I saw you sitting there. Suddenly, I felt outside of myself. Like I was looking down on someone else. That someone else inside of me got up and kissed you.”

“Someone else? It sure looked like you, and if I remember correctly your swing was empty,” she grinned at him.

Well, yes. And then I kissed you and when I did, I was back inside myself, a better self.”

“If I remember right, I think we kissed each other, “ she poked.

He smiled now.

“Yes.  We – you – did kiss me back.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why did you?” he blurted out and stopped himself suddenly.

She laughed and the pipes wiggled.

“Why? Because I wanted to. Because I’ve wanted to.”

His smile turned into a lopsided grin.

“When we first met, you were interesting. With all your math and science stuff, very geeky, but never nerdy. Just interesting. I got to know you better and liked being around you and talking and doing things. I didn’t know quite how to make the transition, and then you were such a part of my world, then – and then time just passed.”

They both leaned back and looked at the coming stars.

“So about what happened tonight?” he asked with a smile.

“You know something else I liked when I was a kid?” she asked.

“What’s that?” the man responded.

She lifted her legs over the little handles, released her grip, and glided down the two-pipe lever. She raised her legs once again and was over the silver-grey fulcrum.  She slid face to face with the man.

“Slides.”

The molecules joined again in a strong covalent bond that would last.