The wind swept through her pigtail, caressing her ears, drying her eyes. It was the teacher’s whistle in the air, little footprints in the mulch, semi-permanent chalk against brick in the places rain will never hit.
Forty minutes till math, Daisy.
The choices were insurmountable: lonely, shivering swings; chilly, hollow slides; towers in need of ruling. But her eyes sought the candy-red monkey bars. The property has the best view, she’d say if she were selling. She wasn’t.
She smiles and marches through the gate toward them. It wasn’t summer anymore. She wouldn’t sweat and she wouldn’t fall.
She’d flip and flip and flip, but she was getting ahead of herself.
Look at the gate, Daisy. Listen for the teacher’s whistle.
The monkey bars cool her hands painfully as the ghosts of calluses burn. Her palms have been smooth a long time now. Laptop keys don’t grip nearly as hard as markers and playground equipment do.
She hangs, knees bending, limbs locking, teeth grimacing.
Her trials, battles fought, mulch money lost and won, surround her. Echoes of triumphs and hurts and laughter.
It’s why her eyes creep beyond the gate, an instinctive, longing-heavy practice. The field is mighty, the parking lot mightier, but that wasn’t the lively, restless piece of freedom awaiting.
It is the road just beyond it.
The cars move fast. Blink, and they’ve disappeared. One white, one red, then one green. An infinite number of people, countless destinations. Unhindered by lunch times, car rider lines, and bathroom passes.
Drivers don’t have recesses.
Her arms strain, belt a too-tight band at her waist.
Gripping and regripping the lollipop bars, she swings her legs up in one big kick; her boots hit metal, pressing.
She hangs and watches the cars. The freedom road. One white, one red, then one green.
Oh, what bliss. To go anywhere, to do anything.
Daisy flips and feels the prickling sting of tension down her spine. A guilty reminder of a muscle she never felt before. Which is odd.
She does not fall. An ambulance doesn’t come. Her mom doesn’t come running. She doesn’t get to go home.
Freshly righted, with clothes sinking back down her limbs, her eyes find her view again. The freedom road. One white, one red, then one green.
Daisy lets her sore arms slide from the bars’ hold and picks up her keys from the mulch.
Molly Collins is a student at the University of Tennessee Knoxville interested in literary fiction, journalism, and screenwriting. Her work explores nostalgia and the emotional tensions between childhood and adulthood.