The Monster.

When I was in kindergarten, I only got in time-out a few times. Facing a red, brick wall during recess was an unluxurious kind of embarassment, so I avoided it.

Come first grade, we moved from the splinter-box to the sandbox. There was a jungle gym in the playground. We would play a kind of game wherein people climbed the outskirts of this metallic mountain and, with daring, grabbed the pole running from the dome at the top, jumped off the top rail, slid down, and, landing awkwardly on the sand, scurried, too fast for the monster to catch, to climb out from between the rails.

            I was always the monster. I chose to dwell at the bottom of the volcano, looking up at them, chasing them as they ran too fast for me. Only a few times was I clever enough to try to climb up the rails from the inside.

            One day, however, maybe in Spring, I was not the monster. I walked along the rim of the sandbox, in luxurious embarassment, looking down at them. I smiled, shyly, and told them that I did not feel like it today. Girls and boys crowded about me soon, pleading. But not today.