Monkey Bars

The retarded boy died in front of us.  Beneath us really, having fallen head-first into the asphalt, the frozen black lake, his blue eyes open, reflecting the winter sky.  The stocking cap was trapped beneath the weight of his head and his chubby body was stuffed into a blue snowsuit that had been uncomfortably small for him two years ago.  

He was still in seizure, flopping, like a fish, spitting up blood.  And from this warm ribbon of red, this blood, steam rose out of the child's mouth.  It hovered in his gaping throat and lingered like a cigarette (a vice he would never know) just beyond the lips.  It was as if he were still breathing and yet refusing to inhale.

Our own breath was hurried, like our conversation.  Perched on the apex of the metal structure--between the agitated siren song of the girls down below--we puzzled over what had happened.  And why?  It had been as if someone had attached a car battery to the monkey bars.  A surge had shot through the slow kid's nerves.  Abruptly, he stopped laughing; that distinct chortle ceased and he heaved up.  His mittened hands had felt the burn.  Instinctively, they had unfolded, open, done with their prayer.  

He fell backwards.  There was a crack.  The poorly attached black boot on his right foot--ill fitting and unlatched--caught on the cold metal and slipped off (easily), tugging the wool sock off beneath it.

Another fish, a smaller fish, his foot suffered, exposed--gasping--in the cool oxygen of the winter air.  His toes were as blue as scales by the time the (screaming) teacher's aid arrived from the far side of the playground.  A plaid wool scarf sat tied gingerly below her chin, balanced on her beehive's aspirations, shaking, yelling, "Get down from there."  She was grabbing at our bell bottoms, "Get down from there."  She either thought we had pushed the boy or that each of us--the four still entangled in the monkey maze--were on the verge of plummeting to earth, replicating his fate. 

Meanwhile, he just lay there, dead and ready for the creel.  There was nothing to be done about it. There was no reason to come down.