He has returned to the core of his pain, for it is the only way he can cope.
His fragile hands have only just healed again, though he stares at the faint, porcelain scars whittled into the healing skin each night, tracing each repaired gouge with his opposite thumb. He is not in pain- no, that is all in his mind now, just as it has always been.
Just as it always will be.
For a while, he'd tried so hard to push it away, to forget the agony forced upon him and the agony created by his own free will, but he has given up. The physical reminders deface his fingertips, and the memories resurface everywhere he looks. In a child, no matter how carefree, he sees pain. In a fence, whether it be metal or wood or stone, he sees suffering. In houses he recognizes his own, where a family terrorized him, and in families he senses cruelty and ignorance, just as he had sensed in his own. It has not ceased, and the harder he tries to push it away, the more frequently he fumbles with his hands, picks at the scars and remembers.
There is no forgetting.
The wounds do not protest as his fingertips brush against the bark of a tree trunk, grazing the ridges as he stares off into the distance, eyes searching through the brush. Calls resonate just beyond the forest, and he takes another step towards them, shifting to shield his eyes from the unforgiving rays of the midday sun. Boot crunching on a spare stick, he winces, pulling aside branches from a thick bush of barberry. Squatting down to shelter himself, he gazes upon the laughter and the joy, reminiscing.
He watches the children grin as they slip down the slides, giggle as they bounce up and down on the seesaw, hoot as they leap from the swingsets. He remembers, the first time he'd returned, being shocked at the brand new, innovative equipment scattered throughout, remembers questioning if he had come to the right place, or if he'd somehow gotten the directions to another school. For he remembers the paint peeling from the slide, squeals in the seesaw as it rocked up and down, rust coating the chains suspending the swings. He remembers the merciless pebbles crunching beneath his feet that left a knee in smithereens when a child fell, and the sharp shards of metal that severed a palm if it landed in an unlucky location while swinging from one monkey bar to the next.
Fifteen years have passed since he has wandered the inside of those grounds, though.
He's not sure why he's so shocked that the world has kept on going without him- that the gravel has been replaced with foam grounds and the slides are fresh and the imminent threat of injury every child on that playground had seemed to evade has been replaced by new safety measures.
Yet, he supposes, not every child. Not the child who caught his fingers on the fence.
It is the one thing he recognizes amidst a sea of brightly colored playthings and time that has not stopped, that has not paused once he left the playground behind. The fence. It still protects them from the dangers of the woods, and the vines still overflow from the forestry surrounding it, still entwine with the links. He creeps closer, sneaking behind bushes until he reaches a section invaded by ivy, where the children cannot see him.
They did not see him yesterday, or the day before. They have not seen him this week, this month, this year.
But he is always there, lingering just beyond the bars during third grade recess.
He does not touch, does not reach out to drag his hands across the bar. No, it is a test of will- to see how long he can simply be there, staring at the very chains that cut him to pieces, without falling apart. He needs a way to cope, a way to conquer what has plagued him; he needs to find strength. And every day, he goes a little longer without turning away, without retreating from what brings such misery to him. The past throbs in his mind, and he stares at where he'd scarred himself, chin quivering. If he didn't know better, he'd say dried blood remained on the links, right where his hand would have reached at the age of eight.
