Playground Panic
When chaos collides with air
Imagine the crash. The conscious mind resurfacing, grasping, outrunning the clutches of Chlorpromazine. There’s a whining child sniveling only four steps from me. His t-shirt smeared with playground dirt and jellybean dribble. His eyes find mine and lock. Click. Somehow, I’m four again.
What if I break for the swings first? I can beat him there, you know. My legs are longer. Sometimes my agility rivals the agile, muscular Cheetah. Sometimes my legs are sunk in blocks of concrete. His mother utters a growled resistance, snatches his greasy, dimpled hand, his sneakers dragging sidewalk.
I stare at my own dingy hands. Drifter hands. Hands for down-bound trains, hands with cautious thumbs for hitchhiking. Hands to extend out for scraps. The roads to nowhere that I’ve gone and lingered.
“Stop it!” the mom screams at lil’ boy, his small hand sticks mid-air in a last, desperate wave. I blink and see for just a moment. The reality of the park, the torridity of the heat, the sharp edges of a metal crepe myrtle it’s peeling paint coloring the dead grass. Then my mind drifts back to its safe place, back to buttercups and looking for angels in the clouds.
