Life (as i know it)

Bliss

Of every park I’d  been to in my life, this was favorite. It was because of the playset. It was old and made almost entirely of wood that stank with the smell of an oily waterproof chemical. They coat the boards with it so that it doesn’t rot in the rain or bleach in the sun. It was a massive feat of playset engineering, complete with an enclosed castle with three stories and dozens of stairways to climb up, four bridges and two walkways that ran from each level to the ground, and a labyrinth of box-like tunnels that ran underneath the whole of it. A second smaller playset was on the other side and the two were joined by a jungle of climbing ropes, monkey bars, and random playthings like a tire swing and a rock wall. The ground was a thick carpet of strong smelling woodchips.

            I loved it for it’s memories more than it’s grandeur. As a kid I played here with my sisters, brother, and Dad and we ran for hours while playing tag. We littler kids had the advantage because we could duck into the underground tunnels before we were caught. It makes me sad to think I can never really experience it the same way again.

            It was nighttime and four orange vapor lights flooded the slats and painted the ground with dark black shadows and pale tangerine highlights. I was hiding in the lowest level, even though I had already reached that point in my development that I was now too big to really fit down here like I had once, and I was waiting for Blithe to come and find me. We were playing hide and seek instead of tag because we had just finished with Thanksgiving that day and we were all pretty much unable to do any real running.

            I thought I had found a decent spot at the dead end of one of the tunnels, but Cadence had walked by earlier while trying to find her own hiding spot and I was pretty sure she was gonna rat me out, mostly because she had giggled and said, “I found you!”

            I was considering moving to a new spot in the time I had left, but I decided against it. Something about claustrophobic dark spaces has always made me feel the most secure. I was just gonna wait out my doom. Maverick was awful at hiding and if Cadence was still looking for a place to hide, it seemed like I had a good chance at winning by default.

            So I was sitting quietly, peacefully, the urge pee slowly creeping up on me and just as I was starting to wonder if I was in the clear to little boys, maybe six or seven, raced by the entrerance to my tunnel, and leapt one of the flights of stairs, grinning and out of breath as they swung invisible swords. The first bounded up the stairs without a second thought, but the second stopped because he had seen me.  He squatted down and grinned, peering into my black cave.

            “Hey!” he shouted. “Who’s in there?” He pronounced “there” so that the R sounded like a W.

I didn’t really know what to say. He was just being a curious little kid and I didn’t want him to run home and tell his mom about “the shadow man who lives at the playground” so I just stayed silent.

            I could really only see his silhouette, but I could tell that he was blond. He wore tiny little sneakers, a longsleeve blue T-shirt, and cargo khakis. I could see his little white teeth as he grinned at me and squinted is eyes so that he could see further into the dark.

            “Who’s in there?” he shouted once more, still unable to pronounce the R. The first boy’s head appeared around the corner and he also peered curiously inward. He appeared to be much less interested and said something to the blond boy and, just like that, they dashed off.

            Blithe came and found me a little bit latter, toting Mavrick, who commented on my spot being an easy one to find, and Cadence, who admitted to having told where I was, but I had lost the will to keep on playing.

            I guess it has something to do with nostalgia. I miss being a kid with no worries. These two phrases should go together. “Ignorance is bliss” and “you never know what you’ve got until it’s gone”. The thing is, you always end up learning. Very seldom does anyone grow up and remain as ignorant as they were in childhood. So I miss my childhood because I miss my ignorance and I never even knew it until it had completely fled me. 

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One of my longer works. A nostalgic piece. I hope I'm not the only one who feels this way about my childhood sometimes. I'll feel like a total sap!

-FO97