The Swingset
The tepid gray afternoon stood stolidly in the face of the rusting steel mill that sat at the bottom of the valley. The town is dying. The river has turned green and murky though it is still labeled blue on maps. Three siblings of various ages play in a small yard surrounded by a green chain link fence. The yard overlooks the mill from above. Theres another child, much younger than the other three being hefted with a practiced skill on the hip of a young mother who has cigarette in her other hand, taking elegant feminine drags of it every so often, blowing her second hand smoke away from the baby of course, though its side-stream smoke wisps delicately towards the babys twitching little nose. She taps out a column of ash into a thin crystal ash tray and tilts her head up, shaking the bangs of her mullet out of her face to look out beyond the screen enclosed back porch out towards the towering stacks of the mill, being fired today and billowing smoke making the gray even grayer. She wondered if they chose these dreary days to fire the stacks on purpose.
The three young siblings are playing on a swingset in the back yard, left there by the previous owner. The lead paint peeled off the metal poles in alternating primary colors, as an injection molded high-density polyethylene red plastic swinging basket and two black rubber swings hung underneath. The children took turns pushing each other on the swings, jumping off, doing backflips, as young daredevils often do.
The young rosy cheeked dirt covered children all pile into the basket and from across the patchy lawn ask mom to push them. Mom walks over, cigarette in hand, baby on hip. And pushes the swing back and forth, her three children giggling and laughing, having the time of their life, unaware of the rest of the world around them.
The porch door creaks open and her husbands young hulking figure fills the doorway. Cigarette in mouth, he sets the beer can down on the wooden ledge of the porch and begins rifling through envelopes. Overdue mortgage and bills.
Mom looks through the gray atmosphere at her husband, her love, and sets down the baby, who begins tottering about the toy strewn lawn. Mom lets go of the swing, letting its slowing arcs sweep the overgrown grass and walks over to husband, her love, arms moving in tight as the rate of drags she takes from her cigarette increase.
The baby nearly trips over one of the various toys, a brightly colored mix of plastic construction vehicles, balls, and dolls. The diapered baby labors them self upwards and turns around, tottering their way back towards the swinging set. As the children above laugh and one by one begin to plead for mom to come back and keep pushing, a thump like hitting an unfortunate animal off your bumper while driving quickly brakes the swinging carriage, and then a blood curdling scream from their baby brother unlike anything theyve heard before.
A buttered cast iron pan sizzles in a haze filled kitchen. A skinny young man stands above it, cracking two eggs and laying three strips of bacon inside. A broken yolk leaks yellow across the pan and begins cooking, solidifying. The young man reaches into his adjacent fridge and opens a cold beer and takes a sip, wiping the excess foam from his upper lip. He scratches his forehead and looks outside the window above his sink, watching the laughing children play outside in the back alley with bitter nostalgia. He pulls a menthol cigarette out from his pack and lights it off the gas burner. A nearby car backfires and the children run away screaming.