Swing of Memories

It’s already late as I start to make my way up to the big and mighty tree. While standing underneath, it seems like it’s holding up the sky like an enormous pillar. But like all the other trees its colorful leaves fell off in this season, so now, it doesn’t look that powerful anymore. It’s standing on a big hill, the highest one around here. It’s not the only tree, but all the others are in a forest a few miles away.  But it can cope with that, as far as I can remember it’s been standing up there on its own. When I was a little kid, many people used to visit every day. But most of them didn’t treat it very well; they climbed up to the top, broke its branches and scratched marks in its bark.

I live at the foot of the hill and I can see the tree from the window in my room. I can also see the swing which is hanging from a big branch beside the tree. Sometimes, it’s swinging a little bit in the wind, as if someone invisible is sitting on it. But most of the time it’s just hanging there motionless. And then, every evening, Carolin comes round.

Carolin loved the swing. She could sit there for hours and hours and just swing back and forth without getting bored. We were the only teenagers in the neighborhood, but never had much contact. We even went to the same class in school, but we almost never talked. Actually, I didn’t know much about her.

But all the little things I noticed about her helped me make my own picture of her. For example, she didn’t have any friends, no one to talk to in school. Carolin wasn’t bullied, but still she knew that no one liked her. She never tried to fit in; in the breaks she sat in a corner with her dark hair and clothes and listened to her music. In class or at school activities she never stood out. Nobody knew much about her.

Most were scared off, but I wanted to know who that girl was, who went up to the tree every evening, swung for hours and then watched the sunset. When the sky was clear, she used to be there until late at night and watching the stars. And I was sitting in my room watching her. Every day I saw Carolin walking up the hill with her head held down, her long, black hair swirling through the air while swinging, just sitting there looking in the distance and finally walking back home with her head even lower than before.

I never saw her face. Her backside was the only thing I saw when Carolin was swinging. But even if I had seen her face I wouldn’t have made out her facial features due to the distance, but maybe I would have once walked my way up to her. But what I was always asking myself was, why she went back home more depressed than when she had came. As if someone up there let her down, but as far as I knew, she went there all alone.

She fascinated me and I think, I somehow fell in love with her. No one was as mysterious and at the same time as attractive as Carolin. Even though I could never overcome my shyness and speak to her. But tonight I’m going up to the old tree on the hill. But tonight, Carolin is not there on the swing. Tonight the swing is just moving due to the cold autumn wind. Tonight is different.

Carolin wasn’t at school this morning. The news of her suicide was spread rapidly within the first lesson. I learned about it this morning, too, but she had already done it the night before. People in school only pretended to show some interest, because they wanted to be interviewed by the media. But I was sitting there the whole morning thinking about going to the swing.

The sky looks like a big black ceiling now and the tree on the hill seems to collapse under such a big weight. It will start raining any second now, so I should hurry up a bit. As I move closer to the tree, I start getting uneasy, as if I could still feel Carolin’s presence here. But then I look at the swing. There’s a folded sheet of paper on it.

What is it doing there? Who is it meant for? Is it for me? Is it a suicide note? With shaky hands I take the letter off the swing. This is when the first water drop is falling down from the black sky, through the cold branches of the tree, right onto the note. I open it and freeze immediately. More drops hit the paper. “Why have you never come up here before?”

© Chads
 
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