It is past mid afternoon. Compared to a Saturday, there are not many people hanging around here in the park. To tell you the truth, these two little girls, riding me right now, are my first visitors in the past seven days. I can hear their giggles resonating about the cold air that is slashing through my body as I am going up and down. With every deep thud of my landing, I am feeling more alive, as if I am listening to my heart beating again. It is not painful for me. I was born to be ridden. I am a seesaw, and this is my last ride.

Although I am old now, and my memory has started to betray me, I can still remember the day I was brought to this park. It was a bright, sunny morning. I was brought in the park along with a swing. He looked very strong and colorful. So did I. We became very good friends later on. Everyone loved us. They said that my shiny, steel body looked gorgeous in blood red, while the slender swing stood complementing me in blazing blue. Life was sweet back then.

The days were full of life, but the nights were dark and lonely. There were no glimpse of smiling faces, no sound of laughter, not even the slightest sign of colors. The swing and I had nothing to do. So we kept each other company. As I started sharing my thoughts with the swing, I realized that we had a lot in common. Both of us could rise higher than the ground; both us could see beyond the horizon. We talked for hours exchanging our views and experiences about how different the visible world seemed from up above every day. For example, a pebble looked like a dot; a flower looked like a little star. I shared with him my stories of going up and down while he told me his tales of moving back and forth. I wondered what he would look like from the mountaintop. He wondered what I would look like from a mile away. Life is supposed to be boring when you have no choice of direction. You miss so many things. Surprisingly, it was not so for us. Life was anything else but boring. We never slept. We did not have to. We had so much to talk about. Each morning, the bright sun blazingly brought in another busy day. We happily welcomed it.

That was some twenty years ago. I am old now. My friend passed away last week. I could tell he was dying. He looked really old and worn. I noticed a substantial loss of energy in his activities. He could not go as far as he could before. He was always tired. The kids would not ride him anymore. He was left alone. He was so sad in his last days that he hardly talked to me. Then one day, they took him away. I did not even get the chance to say goodbye. He was replaced with something that looked like a giant spider web.

I hear that they are going to tear this place down anytime now. ‘Renovation,’ they say. I realize that my time has come too. My old, rusty joints make unbelievably annoying, screeching noises that could be called anything in the world but a pleasure to the ear. My exposed, sharp edges are potential hazards to children. I look really ugly with all the decaying paints and the soaring rusts on my body. The little girl whose eyes I once saw sparkling in the excitement of riding me for the first time, is scared to let her daughter even come near me today. The picture has changed, and so has the frame.

Tonight is my final night. They are bringing in a new seesaw tomorrow: full of strength, youth, and color. The thought of it reminds me of myself when I first came here twenty years ago. As I await my fate standing alone in the dark and listening to the wordless whisper of the voiceless trees, I uncover the very truth that has been with me all my life. Only I could not see it. The obvious truth that as one goes up, the other must go down. Then the other ascends at the dissension of the first: the ever true seesaw effect. The old is replaced by the new, the new in turn grows old one day and is replaced by another new. That is life, not only through the eyes of a seesaw, but also through the eyes of every living creature in this world. No matter how high you fly, you will have to come down to the grounds one day.

They are coming for me. I can see the mounting neck of the crane; I can hear the angry voice of the bulldozer; I can sense the rushed footstep of workmen coming towards me. But above all, I can hear the sound of laughter that had been around me all these years: the goo-goos, ga-gas and giggles. Without dropping down, I can feel my heartbeat for the last time: the deep thud, the moving jolt. I do not feel like leaving, but I have to. I feel like crying, but I cannot. I am not afraid to die. “But sweet, sweet is this human life, so sweet, I fain would breathe it still; your chilly stars I can forgo, this warm kind world is all I know.” (Cory 12)

Works Cited
Cory, William Johnson. Ionica. London: George Allen, 1905.