The Swing in the Clouds

A wooden plank held together by chains. A place where you can sway without a care. From where you can stare at the grass below and the blue sky high above, where you feel like you are high up in the clouds, where you can feel the mild wind on your face, a place where things are calm.

Yes, I am talking about a swing in a random park. The swing has been my escape since I was very young, sitting there and simply swinging used to make my day. I used to forget about the storms raging at home, about the bad kids at school teasing me for being overweight, even the 'Alphabet' homework that I hadn't done. I remember my father pushing me higher on purpose, as he knew it scared me. I used to close my eyes, when it went too high, and imagine that I was flying. Flying away from this world into a happy paradise. I remember my mother laughing at my shouts of protest about going higher. Sometimes I would sit there when things at home weren't happy. I sat there and cried my heart out for being called 'fat' at school. I would stare up at the sky,  lose myself in my imagination and forget my tiny problems.


After a while, the swing didn't matter anymore. I thought people would call me a kid for sitting there and that my problems were now too big to be fixed by a mere swing set. I was wrong. A few days back, I found a swing in a park close to my house, it looked a lot like the one I used to sit on. It was the same plank of wood, cut unevenly and held together by rusty chains. It wasn't pretty but it was 'real', like life.  I sat on it and closed my eyes without a care of what people said. I thought of my dad pushing my swing higher, my mother giggling on the side. I looked at the tiny kids playing around, running happily, not concerned of the things around. The sky was the same old bright blue, the blades of grass were still green. I sat there and sang, I don't have a nice voice but no one was there to hear it. I felt alive after a very longtime. I didn't care about the people who called me fat, neither about the storms not even about all the work I had left. For a while life felt easy, peaceful.


A tiny child came running to the swing and looked at me with expecting eyes. I got off the swing and let her have the swing, I saw her father push her high and her mother laugh beside her, a smile crept to my lips. I sat on a close by bench and watched her enjoy. Watched her borrow my paradise for a while.