Monkey Bars

~

The stench of alcohol drifted through the house, along with the heavy stench of smoke. It's not like he wasn't used to this. All she did was work maybe once a week or on the weekends and as soon as she got paid, she would go out and spend as much as she could on her alcohol and cigarettes. She never worries about him. He hasn't owned a new pair of sneakers for maybe five years. She hasn't cared enough to even buy him shoes.

He had to have his own job just to get money to barely pay the bills and pay for maybe a few meals a week. Thankfully his manager pities him and buys him food occasionally. He worked most of the week from as early as he could to as late as he could. He dropped school a couple years ago so it wasn't a big issue for him to work all day long at the local diner.

Eventually the smell of smoke that drifted through the house became enough to annoy his nose so he grabbed his five year old, run down Nike sneakers and slid them onto his feet. It was the middle of winter but he was wearing a long sleeve shirt so he thought he would be fine. He attempted to make a silent escape from his house by going down the creaky thousand year old stairs that need replacing, but they made too much noise for his escape to be considered "silent". It was more like extremely loud and he was actually scared to make a trip down the ancient stairs in fear of them collapsing underneath his feet and him falling down to the basement to most likely his death.

...Actually... That doesn't sound half bad.

The death part.

He shook that thought from his head quickly and continued down the stairs until he finally reached the landing. He walked down the hallway towards the front door when he stopped by the entrance to the living room, the source of the retched stench infesting the house. There she lay in the center of the room on the old, once bright yellow now nasty brown couch that had been in the house longer than he bothered to remember. The old hag that never truly cared for him laid on it, surrounded by old empty beer bottles and empty cigarette cartons(excluding the one clutched in her hand and the unlit cancer stick sticking out of her mouth). He scoffed very softly, not enough to wake her up, and continued out of the house.

He slammed the front door on his way out for extra dramatic effect, not really caring if he woke her up at this point. He wanted to go to the local park only about five minutes away from his house by walking so he trudged through the thin snow there, finding it easily as it was light out. By the time he found a seat on a bench, his feet were already soaked and freezing but he didn't really care. He stopped caring years ago.

He sat down at the bench and brought his knees up to his chest and just sat on the bench staring at the sky as very small snowflakes softly fell from the heavens. He put his arms behind his head in a stretching motion of sorts and his sleeves gently fell down to his elbows but he didn't even notice. There weren't many people in the park that day which made it nice and peaceful-a great escape.

He sat there, just staring off into space for what seemed like hours but was more than likely only minutes. He looked around at the people whom were milling about but only one person caught his attention. It was a small girl, probably not any older than 7, approaching from over the small hill to his left. She had long reddish blondish hair in two pigtails. From the distance he could tell what she was wearing which was a lot of pink and purple and other bright colors. She looked like a rainbow marshmallow with all the layers she had on.

She had on at least three jackets, all bright pink, and at least two pairs of pants, both blue. She had on a pair of purple snow boots and a giant purple hat on her head. She looked warm. She walked in his direction, her bright purple glasses pointed in his direction. He couldn't tell that her actual eyes were a nice green color until she was almost to his bench.

"Hello mister." She said with a bright smile on her face when she had finally reached him. He looked around himself to see if there was someone else she could have been talking to but there was no one. "Me?" He questioned and pointed to his chest with his right thumb. She nodded and showed off her smile with two missing teeth. She climbed onto the park bench beside him, despite it being covered in snow and ice. When she finally sat her two little legs swung over the side but she didn't seem to notice.

She looked up at his arms resting above his head and took notice to the white lines that resided there. "Sir, what are those?" She asked with a small frown on her face as she pointed to his scars. He looked up and noticed the ragged sleeves of his sweater had fell down, revealing the many white scars on his arm. He put his arms down by his side and tugged down his sleeves.

"Um... Nothing. Don't worry. I used to hurt myself in the past but I don't anymore." He told the small girl, not wanting to make her worry. The small girl looked down as if processing what he said. She looked confused at first but then her face lit up as if she remembered something important. 

"Sir would you mind if I told you a story?" She asked, looking back up at him. He nodded. He had nothing better to do.

"When I was smaller than I am now, I used to not do the  monkey bars on our school playground because I was very scared of them. I would always fall and scrape my knees. But I wanted to be a big girl and hang out with the big kids on top of the monkey bars. Because only the cool big kids sit up there and I wanna be cool. So one day I wanted to be cragous, which is what my teacher said is the big kid word for brave, and I tried to climb on top of the monkey bars to play with the cool kids. But I just fell off. And it hurt lots. My knees got all scraped and my favorite purple dress gots a hole in it. But it's okay because mommy sewed it up when I got home. The next day I didn't go on the monkey bars to be with the cool kids because I decided it wasn't worth hurting myself to be a cool kid. Besides, my bestie Zoe already thinks I'm cool." She told him. She finished her story with a toothy grin.

He wasn't sure what that story had to do with anything, but he smiled back at her. 

"That was a cool story kiddo." He told her and rubbed the top of her head in a friendly way with the palm of his hand gently. She smiled once again at him.

"Harper! Where did you go? You're gonna be late for school again!" He heard a voice shout to his left. The small girl heard it too as she looked up.

"Daddy! I'm over here!" She yelled back and jumped up from her seat next to him. 

A large man in a large brown winter jacket appeared and the girl ran to him. 

"Harper you can't keep running off like that!" He scolded her as she hugged him. He looked up and saw the young man sitting on the bench where she had been moments before.

"I apologize deeply if she was bothering you." He said with a very unapologetic look, as if he really couldn't give two shits. 

The boy waved it off and said she was keeping him company and telling him stories. The father then took his daughter by hand and started to walk away, scolding her the whole way.

When the young boy finally decided he wanted to leave the park and go back to being secluded in his room, he couldn't stop thinking about her story.

Was it really worth hurting himself over?

In the end would he just regret it all?

The next time he went to the park he spent the whole time trying to climb up to the top of the monkey bars to sit there, but he kept falling. By the time he tore a hole in his only pair of jeans, he decided it wasn't worth hurting himself over and went home.