i n

F

BIGGER

SMALLER

COURIER

GEORGIA

TIMES

VERDANA

COMIC

l

RECENT

POPULAR

e

u

 ^{(it's beta!)}

In the springtime she goes to the park. She rides her bike, which she'd pulled from the garbage of one of her cousins' neighbor. It was a blue racing bike and at first she'd had a very hard time learning to peddle and balance on such slender tires. But now she takes corners at full speed and the seat, which isn't held in place tightly enough, slide around so her hips are twisted funny when she starts traveling in a straight line again.

She marvels at the way the trees turn from skeletal remnants of Halloween and winter weather to gently budding and green. At home she tries to match the green of the leaves on paper with crayons and colored pencils and markers, the color never turns out quite right.

The park is in the next subdivision over and there's almost never anyone there. It sits on the edge of a cornfield and is just two swings, a rusting slide, and a crumbling jungle-gym. It takes her less that three minutes to ride there, even when she rides slow, taking the corners languidly. She never goes for the slide or touches the jungle-gym. Instead, she always always always sits on the swings.

She brings her CD player and headphones with her. The music is at maximum volume and she loses herself to daydreams. One day her favorite band's tour bus breaks down outside her door and they have to stay they night and they all make cookies. The next day she's blowing up the school after weeks of having concealed dynamite in the crevices in the walls. But the park is better than any trip to her therapist has ever been. It's honestly therapeutic and she never wants to leave.

The days get longer and the sunsets are always further and further off. When the sun stains the sky in neon colors she slows her legs, letting them trail through the air instead of pumping back and forth and back and forth. She drags her stopping out until the sun has slipped almost entirely under the horizon and inky indigo skies are building behind her. It's then when she rides home, opposite of the way she came, to home where her mother will hug her and kiss the top of her head and ask how her day was.

"Fine," She'll answer, counting down the days until school lets out and high school begins. This summer won't be long enough.