playgroundlostandfound

[playgroundlostandfound]

Homesick - Noah Kahan

[playgroundlostandfound]

By Flora and Fauna

Early winter sunlight peeked through the clouds, cutting the morning mist. The air was crisp, unlike the fallen leaves littering the path, trampled into mulch. Winding through the shallow forest and behind the local playground, providing a back-channel shortcut to the other side of town, lies a well-trodden path. Birds sang in the trees, serenading a young mother, dutifully pushing her daughter’s stroller for a visit to grandma and grandpa for Sunday breakfast. 

Bundled in perhaps one too many blankets, the sleeping child was ill-fazed by the gentle bumps and hurdles of the uneven dirt path. A stuffed hippo, whose colour reflected the wisteria that would bloom come spring, rode alongside the baby. Propped precariously near the edge of the stroller’s bassinet, the hippo had been pushed down, no longer the child’s makeshift pillow so much as her footrest. 

A sudden dip in the path caused the stroller to jerk forwards, disturbing the baby’s peaceful slumber. Her cries garnered her mother’s attention and, in her haste, the mother knocked the hippo right off the edge of the stroller's basket. Preoccupied with the distress of her daughter, the mother noticed nothing. She noticed nothing when she tucked her child back in, wrapped in her blankets, nor when she re-gloved her hands in the crisp morning cold. Only when she arrived at their destination did she sense the absence of her daughter’s plushed friend, and only when she strolled them both home after their visit did that absence warrant search.

The young mother’s search yielded nothing. The hippo was gone, lost to the flora and fauna, or rather, found by the latter.

As the rumbling sounds of the stroller and the steady paces of the mother had faded into nothingness, two masked orange eyes had peeked through the underbrush. The racoon, scarcely bigger than the child whose bed the hippo had just vacated, had scampered towards the alien object, intrigued by the invader in his home. The hippo’s soft fur, so vibrant in the sodden forest, had comforted the creature. Enamoured with his newfound friend, the raccoon brought his new friend home. The hippo, clutched in the teeth of the creature, had traveled across the forest floor. Twigs snapped under the raccoon’s clutching feet and caught in the hippos’ fur. The creature fled, dragging the hippo’s side through the dirt and mud. On and on the creature had raced, almost urgent in its haste. Darting past four hiding rabbits, ducking beneath swooping owls, and dodging one red fox. No one and nothing was to take the raccoon's new special friend.

Eventually, the creature arrived at its destination, a quaint nest of sticks, nestled beneath the hollowed-out trunk of the remnants of a towering tree. Within the raccoon’s home lies other lost, or rather found, objects. A red car with two missing wheels rusts in its place. A collection of differently coloured leaves and flowers slowly rot in the corner as the seasons shift from their warm weather origins. Two partially drained bottles grow forests of their own as they rest, built into the sides of the nest. The hippo, however, is the raccoon’s crowning jewel. The creature places his new friend in the centre of the nest. As the sun sets, and the early winter chills seep through the bedded leaves and still trees, the hippo misses his stroller and home. But the fog settles down, obscuring the creature as he curls arounds the purple hippo. Together, they lie ready for the spined winter nights to come.

[playgroundlostandfound]

[playgroundlostandfound]

"You never forget about kids..., but they forget about you" - Toy Story

[playgroundlostandfound]

You're My Best Friend - Queen

[playgroundlostandfound]

By Someone New

Rows upon rows upon rows of those just like him, stretching as far as he could see. An arm and leg positioned and fastened behind a plastic divider. His cardboard, zip-tied, home hanging amongst many others. His red and blue suit, adorned with a notorious arachnid, and his iconic masked eyes, caused excitement in many a child that came down the aisle. Known for heroics and teaching the power in responsibility, he is an idol to the young. An opportunity for adventurous action stories to come to life, within the safe comforts of a child’s own bedroom. Versions of the figure have each lived a hundred lives, fighting, defeating, and being defeated. He is well-loved, or so he thought. 

A young boy, accompanied by his mother, reached and plucked the figure from his shelf. The boy carried him through the store, out the door, to their home, only to wrap him in a suffocating darkness. Constrained in thin, crinkled paper embellished with bright balloons and cakes, the figure was brought… somewhere.

Suddenly, his papered blanket was ripped violently away, revealing a new boy. The new boy’s head was topped with a cone hat, also bearing balloons, though the real things were floating just behind him. The new boy’s face lights up with the novelty of a new toy. Until the figure is tossed aside, the cherry on top of a pile of freshly revealed gifts, all forgotten in but a moment.

The boy placed the figure in a new home. A new home that was not unlike the suffocating darkness. Discarded and forgotten, the figure rarely saw the sun, let alone the imagined stories of good and evil he was made for. It was only when his boy had friends over that the figure saw any action at all. Unwanted by his boy, he was an extra toy. He was for those who were not to be trusted with his boys’ prized ones. It was on one of these occasions, when his boy’s friends were over to play, that the figure saw the outside for the first time since leaving the store.

The boys traipsed down the block from his boy’s house to the playground. His boy and his friends told stories of good and of evil, and the figure was finally included. It was a breath of fresh air.

But the boys soon grew tired of make-believe, abandoning the toys in favour of a game of hiding and seeking. When the time to return home came around, his boy and his friends collected their toys. They were to return home, safe and cared for, treasured and prized. All but one.

The figure lay for days and nights, discarded on a beam of the playground's old, wooden swing set. His faith in his returning boy dwindled by the moment. He was lost, and worse, he was forgotten. Resigned to his fate as abandoned, slowly fading to the mere remnants of his former potential as his colours dulled and his spider peeled, the figure lay.

Until he was found once more. 

The ecstatic squeal of yet another new boy, alerting the figure to careful hands raising him from the wooden beam, treating him with an unfamiliar kindness and respect. The recounting of the new boys’ tale of discovery to his father, followed by the excited rambling of the figure’s rarity and the new boy’s fortune. An introduction to strong smelling soaps and harsh brushes, wiping away the grits and grimes of dismissal and insignificance. And a new home, a true home, next to another figure much like him, with the same arachnid adorned suit and mask, though the other's was black and silver. The figure’s face littered his new boy’s room. Hundreds of versions of the figure’s likeness looked back at him from toys, and posters, and books, and building bricks. The difference was, even in a sea of himself, the figure’s newest boy treasured and prized him as though he were one of a kind.

[playgroundlostandfound]

[playgroundlostandfound]

"Being lost is worth being found" - Neil Diamond

[playgroundlostandfound]

By Who Lost It

Sheets of rain hammer the silver slide, thundering and echoing through the fields and their trees. The geriatric town playground stands still under comprehensive cloud coverage, the same as it has been for as long as anyone could remember. Under the safety of the slide’s twisted chute, tucked from the elements and their ruthless harbinging of change, a delicate music box lays silent, its dancer mid-jump, also frozen.

Hold me close and hold me fast…

Those words had rung through the increasingly empty halls of the dancer's home.

Once long ago, two lovers danced themselves as their song warbled through a needle, read off a thin black disc. The golden lights of an unplanned future glowed through detailed foliage stained on the wall’s glass. The air’s dust revealed in its frenzy. 

That magic spell you cast…

Later, the words floated sweetly from floors above, clearer than ever before, accompanied by the quiet giggles of a young girl. The words remained steadfast in the girl's life as she grew older, her eyes catching the edge of the carved wooden mantle, finding her tiny dancer. She hummed, she murmured, she sang the words learned from her mother. Her dancer spun, she twirled, as she played the notes in accompaniment...

This is La Vie En Rose…

...until the dancer’s girl left. Her possessions, precious and not, were wrapped up in boxes. Yet, the girl's treasured dancer was abandoned, alone on her island of oak.

The house grew silent. The air’s dust, previously golden and alive, quieted, and found a new home on the rose velvet of the dancer’s pedestal. The dancer’s mirror found smudges and grime, warping her reflection, while her gears grew stiff from disuse. Her skirt wilted in the lands of insignificance, where she now stayed, forgotten and frozen and lost. 

✦ . 　⁺ 　. ✦ . 　⁺ 　. ✦ . 　⁺ 　. ✦ . 　⁺ 　. ✦ . 　⁺ 　. ✦ . 　⁺ 　.✦

One fateful day, the heavy front door shrieked its way open. The dancer’s girl greeted the quiet house in joyful tones, accompanied by the excited chatter of a new girl, smaller than the dancer’s girl had ever been.

Oh how the new girl would love the tiny dancer.

When you press me to your heart, I’m in a world apart…

Just like that, the dancer was found. She twisted and leapt, her skirt flared, though stiff. She reached for the highest heights on the tips of her toes. Spotlights glanced and glittered off the sparkles on her gown, throwing rainbows to a fictitious audience. Her new child’s most fantastic dreams were projected and imagined to life, making them possible, attainable. The music-box sang its sweet songs once again, infectious to its audience. Eliciting a heavy nostalgia in those who finally remembered it, and enchantment in those to whom it was new. The tiny girl prodded the tiny dancer back to life, and each grew to love the other like no other had before. 

A world where roses bloom…

The love the small girl held for her dancer was immeasurable. Her dancer was a token reminiscent of her mother, her grandmother, and her largest dreams, all in one. She brought her dancer everywhere with her, the music-box’s song twinkling through her life. It was how the dancer escaped her oaken prison, how she saw her new girl's school, and met her new girl’s friends.

It was how the dancer was lost under her new girl’s favourite playground, exposed to the elements, whose touches held none of the gentleness of her tiny girl.

It was how the wails of a heartbroken child rang across the field and through the sparse trees neighbouring the playground. The soft tones of her mother, who’d abandoned the dancer once before, consoling her distraught daughter.

It was how the scrambled shouts of her girl’s friends, who’d loved the dancer so, rang through the rain as they searched for her, eager to help their friend.

It was how one lone, reaching hand ended up grasping the very corners underneath the slide, braving the spiders and mulch. Small fingers brushed the music-box’s damp velvet, causing a triumphant cry to cut through the mist as their owner called over the dancer’s tiny girl. Her little girl’s tear-stained face came into focus as she reached for her dancer with trembling fingers, sniffling as she turned the dancer’s key. The dancers’ familiar melody rang through the desolate playground, all but inaudible in the surrounding showers. The dancer's true girl threw her arms around her friend, though still shielding her dancer and her familiar gentleness is comforting to the newly lost than found.

...This is La Vie En Rose.

[playgroundlostandfound]

La Vie En Rose - Edith Piaf

[playgroundlostandfound]

[playgroundlostandfound]

“Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things” - Cicero

[playgroundlostandfound]

[playgroundlostandfound]

All at a playground, lost and then found:

on the edge of the forest, nestled in thistle

a quaint, painted playground lays.

born clean, born crisp

a hot silver slide, shining nails, strong oak, primary coats

decades of mist, of rain, of fog, of play

have slowly chipped down its pristine condition

its fragile-grown frame holds echoes 

of small running feet,

the ringing of past giggles and squeals

memories in the making

it’s seen better days

with joyous, shrill cries come those of despair

dozens a child frail stability

for with raucous play, comes ripe dismay

of many a object lost

But what’s lost can be found

By anyone, anything

Who lost it, those around, someone new