Idle
I’ve dreamt of this place for some time. I’ve felt its emotions. I’ve sketched its essence. While doing so, I couldn’t figure out whether it was real or another potentially shot synapse. It felt like a ghost, moreso than a place. Today, with my errands complete, I decided to stray around the neighbourhood before returning home – camera in hand.
And there it was. Not quite in its original form, but still the place from a distant past. When life from a few months back feels like a lifetime ago, memories from a childhood feel distanced by eternity – so much so that it strays from the edge of reality.
During our short friendship as kids, Aaron carved a badly-drawn sword into one of the wooden seats to proclaim it his. Always the competitor, I scratched two into the other. It was mine. As reluctant as my feet were to exert and kick off; and as much as I didn’t think much of the moment I rose slowly: it was the downward rush that brought me back there every evening. The rush consumed me. It erased any knowledge of the bickering and flying plates that existed two blocks over at that precise moment. It created a world where there was only me and my thoughts. Isolation of a pleasant nature. The anxiety, agony and doubt of the slow rise was something I knew all too well, swingset or not. The rush, its adversary, existed only on these seats.
The chains are much cleaner now, the seats are sturdy plastic and the frame itself glistens in several coats of near-fresh paint. A nearby plaque proclaims it an act of community restoration.
To me, it’s an act of desecration.
They are gone. The rusted chains. The barely-standing frame. A seat that was no more than a tattered wooden plank. The swords. They can never be restored.
I took a seat on one of the swings, the one which existed in the place of mine - but it was cold in the sunlight. It wasn’t mine. The one I once knew was now lost somewhere in the past. An old friend, possibly moreso than Aaron, had passed on.
I could only sit there in mourning – in a slow rise, with no rush.
Not far from me, there was a small silhouette on the wooden barriers bordering the park. Her hair was tied back, her frame contained in its introversion. Closer observation revealed a strange half-tale. Two hands suppressed a fluttering dress at her knees, yet it continued at her ankles – the fabric’s smooth flow hindered by crumples and creases. Her head was clearly shivering in a mix of emotion, her slender hands grasped a tissue. Her hair was dark, yet frizzed and somewhat out of order. Her lips appeared dry and subtly panting in a desperate, near-petrified grab for breath. Her gaze was hollow and fixed on the far side of the park. There were no tears – only eyes too exhausted and fearful to weep.
The bruise ran down the side of her cheek.
On any other day, she would be beautiful. Today, she is in agony – her beauty takes on a differerent, tragic form.
I’m bewildered, intrigued. The sheer picture of her tells the first thousand words of a story, with many left unsaid. Every instinct of me aches to approach, aches to place an arm on her shoulder and aches to ask questions - aches to hug her as she aches for a comforting touch.
No.
Her story, whether of suffering or joy, would continue without my aid or interference. Otherwise, it may not continue at all. I could not say it, so I formed the whisper in my head:
Hold on. Don’t fall.
That was all I did.
Once more, merely an observer, I reached for the camera to capture this moment – though it had no more power left.
I empathised completely.
I could only sit there, witness her slow rise – doubtful of whether there would be a rush.
An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.
- Walter Bagehot, servant of irony
