The Seesaw

My neighbor’s seven-year-old son disappeared two days ago. I knew what had happened to him and I did not do anything. Not intentionally at least. It was just an accident that you could not have seen coming.

I was trying to make a seesaw out of wood that laid in my front yard since the day they cut down the tree, which used to look as if it would collapse on the roof any fateful day. I had a perfect way to use the wood or at least some of it if not all. Stacy, my six-year-old daughter, liked those seesaws she had seen in parks. She used to go gaga over them. I had lost the count of how many times I had to play with her on those things when we went to the park taking a stroll or walking the dog. She just would not budge until I obliged. My stubborn little princess she was! What would she not give to have a seesaw right in the front yard?

“Charles, one of these days you will have to build a seesaw for this bugger of ours,” My wife had said more than once.

I had thought of a perfect place to lay its base; it was that uneven patch of ground in the yard that came into existence because of a shitty job in filling up a ditch. Those bastard landscapers!

I was done with making a seesaw sooner than I had expected. So, I rented one of those giant wood-chippers and decided to get rid of extra wood. I toiled away for a good couple of hours and decided to treat myself with lemonade, a highly vaunted specialty of my wife’s hands.

When I came back out in the yard with belly full of liquid, I turned the chipper back on and vowed to get done with it by the dusk. Little did I know that Sam, my neighbor’s son, had creeped up inside the hopper while playing hide-and-seek. I thought he had no chance. His tiny body was pulled in and shredded into pieces. His screams were muffled inside the chipper while they lasted. I lunged to shut the damn thing off as soon as I got the wind of something going wrong. But…it was not going help. He was already reduced to a mangled mass. His blood dripped from the edges of the chipper and onto the grass that now turned red. My gut retched and spilled out at the sight of this calamity.

I knew I could not have explained this to anyone. No one would believe that it was an accident. A middle-aged man involved in a child’s death! Well, that is too familiar of a narrative reaching only to one conclusion. I still considered a tiny possibility of people believing my story eventually if not right off the bat. Maybe they will be logical and understand that these accidents can happen. And there was no way I could have harmed anyone in such a merciless way, let alone a child. But after a brief contemplation, my head told me that even if people believed me, they would never forgive me. My life would go on and end one day still under the shadow this horrible incident, making me the most hated man in my town.

So, I buried him. All pieces of him as a matter of fact! Right inside that ditch that laid in the middle of the yard! And then, as previously planned, I placed the seesaw on top of it. I rendered the ground beneath it precisely uneven just as it looked before. As if it hadn’t been dug at all.

“Charles, have you seen our Sam anywhere?” Jason, the boy’s father, asked that night once I answered the knock at my door. I was standing in front of him, once again, pondering if I could tell him and let out the sob that lied buried deep within my throat. But I knew better.

“Charles, have you seen Sam? We cannot find him anywhere,” Jason asked again, shaken and distraught. His wife, Maria stood beside him with eyes that wouldn’t stop leaking tears.

“No, I don’t…….I have not seen him….actually...” I managed to say.

“Well, can you keep an eye out, buddy? We should find him…but just in case…you see him first…” He said before running off to the next house in search of Sam. As I saw them trudge with heavy hearts and anxious minds, I wondered how long it would be before they came to terms with the fact that their son would never come back.

***

Then yesterday, I meandered in the yard, stealing glances at the seesaw as every glance reminded me of the sight of the boy’s chopped limbs jammed in the chipper. I tried strolling, I tried burying my face in the newspaper, I tried focusing on the yapping television, but I could not find peace no matter what I did. And how could I? A boy laid in the ground in my yard as his parents waited for him to return!

In the afternoon, from my yard, I saw Jason and Maria getting out of their house and driving away as if they had stumbled upon a clue on Sam’s whereabouts. They were making a run for something, it seemed. I could tell, just by looking at them, that they were beyond exhausted. Their faces displayed unwavering spirit that had not allowed them to quit, but their body was clearly begging for mercy after hours of restlessness. Maria’s eyes were red and puffy from hours of weeping. I could imagine their grief. Had something happened to my Stacy, I would be just as wrecked, just as lost and probably even suicidal by now. My princess was the apple of my eye, after all! I wished I could tell them, give them a closure, help them move on, but there was no way!

“Can you believe they are headed off to their psychic?” My wife said as she joined me outside with a mug full of tea.

“What?”

“I’m talking about Jason and Maria. Didn’t you see them leaving? Maria told me this morning. They are going to their psychic to ask about Sam,” my wife continued as she sipped her tea intermittently, “the psychic was out of town but it seems he is back. Hence, all the running!”

I looked at her. Engrossed in relishing the warmth of her tea, she was making sound observations.

“As if he the God-damned psychic will help them find Sam! Idiots!” She scoffed.

“Honey, let’s go inside. My head is hurting from all the sunlight,” I said, changing the topic.

“Okay! Do you want to watch something on TV?”

“Sure.”

“But yea, I cannot get over the fact that Jason and Maria are dumb enough to go to their psychic rather than checking on the detectives who may actually find something,” she said as she flipped through channels.

“Honey, let me check if Stacey is awake from her nap,” I said and left the living room as I could not talk about my neighbors or their boy anymore.

The next morning, I woke up to my wife jolting my arm, gasping and sweating.

“Charles, wake up! Wake up! Stacey…I cannot find her anywhere!” She was screaming.

I flung myself out of the bed and ran to Stacy’s room as my wife followed me. I searched the entire house, everywhere around the house, screamed her name on top of my voice without pausing to breathe - but she was nowhere to be found. My wife called the cops and was assured that they were on the way. My head was spinning as if I was thrown in a deep gorge headfirst. My feet never stopped running around the house even though the eyes had done countless futile searches.

“Let’s search around in the neighborhood until the police arrives, let’s ask the neighbors at least, let’s do…something!” my wife gagged, almost begging.

That was when something dawned on me. I ran outside and went straight to my neighbors’ door.

I pounded on it without halting. Their front door, thick as the door of a vault, shook with my brute force. That is when Jason showed up.

“Jason, have you seen my Stacy?” I asked as tears rolled down my cheeks.

“Actually…no!” He replied, cold as a slab of ice. “But I was wondering when you would show up!” He added.

“We…we…cannot…find her…please…do…you…know…anything?” I sobbed.

He stared into my eyes and stayed quiet. I sensed something strange and ominous in his head, lurking through his emotionless eyes

“Jason, did you? Did you do anything, please for God’s sake! Just tell me where my Stacy is!” I wept.

He took a step forward and looked at me carefully. His face was still without an expression, eyes now sparkling as if enjoying the sight of my misery, and the chest swelling with satisfaction of some sort.

“I have no idea, Charles! But I am sure – if you ask my psychic, he would tell you that your Stacy is probably where my Sam is! Wherever they are. They might just be together!” He spoke as he turned his head to the left. His eyes gazed at my yard and settled on something. Something very particular.

I followed his eyes and turned to look at my yard. What I saw sent shivers down my spine! There - in the middle - the ditch underneath the seesaw seemed freshly dug and covered!