InsaneJournal

Reizo sat alone in a swing, long legs stretched out in front of him, gripping the rusty chains and creaking back and forth on the seat he was dwarfing. The frame squealed with the effort of supporting the lanky wall of muscle, loudly enough to draw a cautious look up at it to make sure it wasn’t going to follow through on the threat to fall apart and come crashing down on top of him.

Not that it would matter.  Something like that would bruise him but the real damage would be the humiliation.  No reason to be humiliated if no one‘s around to laugh at you.  He was alone here amidst the colorless patches of wind and, long ago, shoe scuffed ground, in a small abandoned lot that sat squashed between the wreck of one building and the construction of another.  Tufts of scraggly weeds sprouted up near the corners of the square, adding some much needed natural coloring to the plot.  Several pieces of playground equipment were strewn around, all in various states of disrepair:  a jungle gym sat dead center, looming over the other equipment like some great acropolis, shattered wooden stairs grinning out like cruelly pointed teeth.  A slide lolled off in the corner, warped by rust.  A pair of spring riders sat silently side-by-side, one’s (once) vibrant green eyes lost to age or vandalism and the springs just starting to tinge brown.  A sandbox sat not far from the swing set, most of the sand scattered out its side, with the broken edges of colorful plastic shovels and buckets sticking up out of what was left.

They looked like tombstones.

He quit kicking lazily off the ground and let the swing came to a slow, meandering stop as he fumbled a fresh cigarette out of his pocket to light it.  He took a single, somber draft before he slumped in the swing, chains digging in his broad shoulders and cigarette bobbing in his mouth, dark eyes boring through the bare bones construction of  the building in front of him to watch the people passing by on the sidewalk and the sinking sun reflecting off the shop’s windows.