The Swing

Once upon a time there was a playground with an old swing by the edge of the lake in the park.

Xena loves to hang out at the old swing. This swing overlooks everything, from across the lake to way beyond, way beyond where she could ever reach or ever be at.

Xena loves to hog the swing. She will wake up in the wee hours of the morning, gobble down last night’s dinner that she envisions as breakfast, and rushes towards the swing just to be the first person to ride that swing.

She will climb atop the swing; push herself as far as she can ever go.

Whoosh! The wind blows past her shirt.

Whoosh! The wind blows past her cheeks.

Whoosh! The wind blows her hair straight out, a sheet of black.

She loves the sound of wind in her ears. All her nightmares are cleared the moment she starts swinging on that swing.

She even believes that the swing has magical powers! The night before she falls asleep, she will pray that the swing will bring her the worst nightmare she could ever have in her life.

You may not see the point in her seemingly silly prayers, but her point is – if she swings hard and the swing is still able to swing her fears away, it will prove that the swing is really magical!!!

So this particular night, she wished and prayed extremely hard for the worst nightmare in her life. She did not know why, but she felt that she needed even more affirmation that this swing is magical.

That night, she dreamt that a giant monster had taken over to swing.

The giant monster climbed atop the swing.

To and fro, to and fro he swings. The poor swing creaks under the weight of the giant monster, almost as though it is screaming out for help.

Xena really wanted to help. But this giant monster was 3 times her size, even if she threw rocks at it, the rocks just bounced off his body and he would not even feel a single itch.

Finally, the poor swing could no longer take the immense torture this monster is inflicting onto it. It gave an almighty loud creeaaakkk and splash!!! The swing gave its final bubble from the lake (or maybe it was the giant monster’s last breath).

Xena woke up in perspiration (a lady does not sweat, she perspires). She wiped her brow, gobbled down her last night’s dinner that she thought was breakfast, and went to where the swing was, down beside the lake.

She climbed atop the swing like any other morning, but today, she swung the hardest. She needed to get the nightmare out of her mind. Awfully traumatised, she kept looking around for a giant monster that may appear to snatch away her golden seat (she thinks it is HER golden seat even though there is only one seat) and got distracted as she swung harder and harder.

She was so focused on looking for the giant monster that she could not hear the complaining creak from the swing that was getting louder and louder.

Suddenly she felt the wind blowing against her hair, clothes and face even stronger than before. Then she was grabbing air and her butt was in the air. She was no longer on her golden seat – she had flown off the seat and towards the lake she flew!

Splash!

Her poor life ended with a water display. The swing gave its final creak, thinking to itself that the giant monster in the nightmare it gave her is actually herself – Xena.

Poor Xena! For her whole life (which was not that long anyway), she had deluded herself that the swing is ridding her of her nightmares. Instead, this evil swing is giving her those nightmares. But we cannot possibly blame the swing, can we? Xena swings the swing so hard that it creaks endlessly, but she ignores it. So does she deserve the death swim?

Well, we can’t say for sure, but this swing really does have magical powers!

Author's note: Once again, this story is purely fictional and any resemblance to any person or incident is purely coincidental! This was written in exchange for another story - the friend has to write on the same first line, with his own story! :) I'll post his up later.