The Swing's Carousel

• Callum McLeod, Grade 11, The Scots School
• Short Story
• 2011

Finalist in the 'Honoured Writers of 2011' competition

This night is a yellow night. From his bedroom window upstairs, he can see the rusting swings and see-saw of the park opposite, as they lie desecrated under the ochre radiance that a nearby street lamp throws. Above, the yellow moon slowly negotiates its way across the black heavens. Shadows twist out from amongst the children’s derelict playthings and, amongst these shadows, sits a solitary baby’s pram.
The thumping and shouting from the room next door begins to reach its nightly crescendo as he kneels upon the cold floorboards before his bare window. Abruptly, he stands and leaves. He retreats to the park, where he can escape the stranglehold of his splitting family and hide amongst the thickening shadows that haunt the cracked and littered asphalt.
The swing shrieks out into the forbidding night as he idly rocks back and forth. The racket does not disturb him, though, as he sits comforted and protected by the noise from the staccato thumping that reverberates through his house — the result of which his father will guiltily hide with bloodied bandages the next morning. The shrieking is a strange lullaby,soothing in its simplicity.
It is now, as he begins to drift away with the rhythm of his metal serenade, that he sees again the pram. Consumed in a state of rhythmic infantile comfort, the pram fits perfectly into the childish and dreamlike circus that revolves, as though a carousel, in his mind. He lifts himself from the swing — shaky from the dizzying antics that are tumbling through his head — and stumbles towards the pram.
As he nears it, he stops and glances — perhaps for a second or maybe longer, for he has no sense of time — at the yellow window of his parents’ bedroom. It seems to shine out like a lighthouse into the darkness of the park, disguising itself as a beacon of safety while it draws the unwary seadog. He can see a panicked sailor now — a cowering silhouette under the violent fist of his father.
His eyes flick back once more to the pram. He is a metre away from it now, and shuffles towards it like an awed and humbled fanatic, before grabbing at its frame to peer into its sacred contents.
As the yellowed darkness melts away, the gentle carousel in his mind explodes into a fiery, screaming tantrum. The rhythmic lullaby in his head surges louder and faster, and louder and faster, until it burns at the insides of his head and forces his knees to the ground. He struggles to breathe, and gasps in a deafened panic.
Then finally it stops, and he is left panting and sweating. The image of what was inside burns and gouges at his tightly-shut eyes, clawing its way into his brain. Behind him, as he lies curled and prone, a shriek of chains emerges from the darkness. Across the street, the house is eerily silent.