The rain came softly down on the school playground. Not softly enough for the teachers to let the kids go out though and so they had to be content to stare at it through their sprinkled window pains. The smell of the rain fused with the soil covered cedar chips that covered the playground.
The rain spattered off of the painted metal monkey bars. At the center of each bar, where it was used the most, layers of paint stripped off to show a rainbow of previous colors. The smooth metal that peaked out at the very center shone even in the cloudy light. The monkey bars were a favorite of the kids, but had resulted in more than one injury so they were not a favorite of the teachers. Kids liked to swing from them, but also to climb up top and observe the playground as a hole.
From there you could see the three tire swings. These at least appeared to be made of real tires with the smell of rubber to boot. The kids loved the authenticity of them even if that's not how they'd say it. The way the black material bent with their light weight and the way the chains clanged together as they twisted them tighter and tighter so they'd have the very best spin, the kind that would make your gum fly out of your mouth, were just other things the kids loved but wouldn't articulate. The playground would spin around and around them on the swing.
One of those spinning sites was the wooden jungle gym. The teachers were glad when it had been painted because it severely cut down on the number of splinters that the kids got. Somehow though, kids still managed to get them, but now that they were blue the children found them less painful. The jungle gym was mostly a rectangle with a hollow center that kids sometimes used to play house in but it was also used as a base for all manner of chasing games. The roughness of the wood, though dulled by the paint, was still there, making it seem like it grew out of the cedar chips on the ground. There were also ledges on the outside of the jungle gym that kids loved to climb up and jump off of, well only jump off of when the teachers weren't looking that is. But the kids loved to feel like they could almost fly above the rest of the playground.
One thing they imagined flying above was the slide. It was mostly metal but the top of the slide had a hood that was made out of something the kids couldn't identify. It scared the little kids because on the inside it almost looked like it had been made of hair. It didn't smell like hair, but it looked like hair and been matted down and matted down with layers of paint to form this little hood. Now the top of the slide was one of the few dry places on the playground. The slide itself was a shiny metal that burned hot in the summer and nearly frozen in the winter. Today it was a waterfall of rivulets of rain leading down and down.
Those rivulets spread through the woodchips and over the soft soil until they reached the sandbox. There was a smattering of toys in the gritty sand now being one large clump in the rain. The bright plastic stood out on such a gloomy day, but they smoothness of the plastic always stood out from the sand. Mostly younger kids played in the sandbox, but older kids used it as a place to just sit and fidget with the grains as they hung out, having to scrub the grit from under their fingernails later.
It wasn't the quietest place, however, because right behind it was the four square court. Well court is a bit of an exaggeration as it was just where four blocks of concrete met and formed a larger square. The purpose of them originally didn't matter though, it was used for the game now and that's the meaning it carried. Today though there were no shouting debates about the rules, no ball bouncing, no laughter, just the sound of rain hitting concrete.
Oh well. Hopefully tomorrow the sun would shine.
(Prompt by Kimisha Cassidy)
love this!!!
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