Missing

In the school playground, the slide stands sentry over the night quiet. The jungle gym throws shifting shadows onto cool sand pitted by the passage of small feet. The full moon catches here and there on faceted grains to sparkle just a little. The swing stirs gently, waiting for a diminutive pilot to carry it high as the tether allows.

Molly walks over the moon-glittered sand, leaving no mark on its silky surface. Her face a blur of chalky sorrow; eyes like winter nights. The swing’s chains sing of summers past. Summers missing. Ice-cream dripping onto denim, sandals soaring like scarlet birds. A song bringing tears that cannot fall.

There are those who walk past the playground and hear laughter, whoops of triumph. And there are the others. Those who shiver even in the sun, maybe cross the street to distance themselves from the stain of cruelty, the ghost-soft sniffles of misery.

Molly swings, chains wailing all around her. They sing of torment now, of the man with the bone-stretched face, the cold sickle smile. The man who’d catch her—gripping her poking toes with shade-chill hands—then snatch her away. From summer and swings and all that childhood still promised.

The jungle gym throws shifting shadows onto cool sand. The full moon glints in the exposed half of a single quarter nobody dares to claim. Dropped from the pocket of a denim skirt, change from the ice-cream truck. A battered milk carton lies half-buried in the sand nearby; the tooth-grin photo faded like patent sandals left outside.

Molly leaves the swing to its final melody. There’s rain in the air, and something more. Few can feel it. The sickle smile slash, the snatching of summer. She leaves no mark. The slide stands sentry over the night.