The Eighth

Trajectory

“Would you believe that I can swing my way up to Heaven?”

“It takes a lot of swinging.”

“Only until it’s high enough.”

(It also takes an act called "Letting Go". That's when you reach the zenith of the swing, free yourself from the shackles of holding something, believe you're Superman and watch as the trajectory carries you into a graceful somersault before landing you on your neck. I hope you've got the Divine Insurance covered). 

****

There was that other story, which went like this:

The girl was an unhappy girl. Her parents had little time to love her, and even if they made sure she was fed and bathed and occupied with things like Piano and Art and Stories, they paid no more attention to her other than her grades, or sometimes to cane her for disobedience, even when she wasn’t, but had seemed so.

In school she had little friends, who only cared for as long as she would play with them or share her things, and after school it was either Piano or Art or Stories or home alone, with the emptiness of the house. When so, she would finish her homework and sat by her window to wait for something to happen. Sometimes she would sneak outside and walk to the playground near her house. There, she would content herself by sitting on the swing, and singing made-up songs to nobody (for the playground, old and rusty and uncared, was always deserted).

When she decided that she would run away from home, like the brave boys and girls in the Stories, she was sure that the world has much more to offer than an empty life. And knowing about the dangers of strangers, and stray dogs, and traffic, and the monsters that live in the street cracks and the shadowy alleys; and also knowing that she could, perhaps, be found by the police eventually, and be taken home to her parents that would cane her, yell at her, take things away from her – she believed that nothing could be had when her heart is a constant void. Believing in that, and the world, she packed her schoolbags with clothes and food and a little book for her Art and Stories, and walked out of the house with her little yellow hat. She remembered to lock the door and hide the key in the post box.

But before she would run away and into the world, she had decided that she would visit the playground. She would sit in that swing, for one last time.

As usual, the playground was empty. She put her bag on the ground and sat herself on the swing. The rusty chains creaked against the rusty frame. She kicked and they creaked even more, but after awhile, as though it remembered how it was like before time made it old and decrepit and forgotten,  when it was played with by children who came by in every time of day -  it stopped creaking.

She kicked, and swung, and urged the swing to go higher. And each time the wind swept past her ear in a whoosh, her heart whooshed along with a laugh. She smiled and swung and sang her made-up songs, which would always end as Tra-la-la-la and start with Fa-la-la-la. She swung and the world blurred. She swung until everything became the whiteness of the skies above, pure and wholesome in its emptiness.

She realised she wasn’t swinging anymore, but sitting in the whiteness of the sky. Her heart is still whooshing, and she was still smiling. Her songs rang in her head.

“Hello,” said someone, who is a boy a little older than her.

“Hullo. Where am I?” she asked.

“You’re in Heaven. You swung your way up here.”

“You can do that?”

“Not everyone,” said the boy, and he looked a little embarrassed. “You have to be swinging so high and fast and happily to end up here.”

“Did you swing your way up here?”

“No. But I’ve seen people do that.”

“So what happens now? What do I do?” asked the girl. She tried to remember the things in her Art and Stories that were about Heaven.

“Whatever you want to do,” said the boy. He smiled. “It is Heaven. I can show you.”

“Okay,” said the girl. And she smiled, too.

She took his hand and they ran into the whiteness, past the sky and into Heaven.

The news reports would say that the girl was first discovered missing when her parents came home to find a locked and empty house. The police found her bag in an old abandoned playground, but they found no other trace of her. Her face soon appeared in the newspapers, and eventually on the streets and on every wall along with phone numbers and honest pleading to bring her home. They blamed a lot of things. They blamed the parents, blamed kidnappers, blamed mentally dangerous people, blamed the education system and Television and the state of the world. But they never would know, and believe, that the little girl would have swung her way up to Heaven.

When the playground was demolished to make way for shop houses, the swing went along with it. And, along with the news and the posters, everything was forgotten.

****

You can tell that I’m incredibly bored right now.

I’m also feeling melancholic. Perhaps not so immensely; more like the feeling of sitting under grey, shapeless skies. More like emptiness.

I don’t know why it’s so. I just know that I’ll be filled and fulfilled in time, though there’s a part of me wishing that it wouldn’t happen so quickly.

Angels need their sleep, too.

And I wish and pray for that. I also made sure to bribe the Sandman to sprinkle a little more than usual, and maybe sabotage the alarm clock.

Because I own the night these days, through making the right friends and investing in the right areas, I have the most of it.

My dreams can happen later. For now, I wish the angel her sleep.

I have my Words, after all. In all of its ugly shapes and deficiencies.

****

For the first time in two years, I found myself at the playground right down the road.

I was there to take pictures, but pictures can be hard to take when everyone is wary of you doing that, and they looked like they were ready to rally with pitchforks and rakes. I took very little and very cautiously. I’ve also lost my lens cap there. It’s just the kind of thing I’d do.

They’re here, the ones that looked like they mean something. They’ll be on Flickr, too, but Flickr hates it when I try to upload too many at one go. Or maybe it’s just my feisty Internet connection.

Anyway: 

Because being barefooted is just more fun

You have to make a name somewhere, even an abbreviated one.

Seeing Joy

Giving Joy

Having Joy

No Joy

A piece of trash, literally. The Recyclists are probably hounding down on me now.  

This is an accident, but it turned out to be one of those that I feel happy about. In a sense; Accidental Happiness.

Moving Forward. The best direction, imho.

And that's that.

Goodnight, people.