Free Ecstatic Cahoots: Fifty Short Stories by Stuart Dybek

released; he could leave his own fear behind, though to do so required that the boy outrun everything he knew—every memory, every dream, every thought, every emotion, all burning off like the tail of the icy comet that was his past. He ran in the vacuum of his own momentum, a stitch splitting his side as he threatened to outrun his own breath. It was then he realized, in a way that would have pleased his father, that such impossible running could only be a rare gift of the spirit.
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    When he came upon the swing in a glade that opened like a neglected garden at the heart of the forest, he finally stopped. He waded into sunlight as if it were a pool. Scarred by thorns, his outgrown clothes reduced to rags, the boy stood half immersed in the solemn shafts streaming through a canopy of green. He felt overwhelmed by an emptiness that never would have caught him had he continued running. He knew he couldn’t retrace his steps and retrieve all he had discarded; except for the silver penknife, the past was lost. But as the whistle of velocity echoing in his ears dissolved into silence, and the silence dissolved into birdsong, toad-trill, insect-drone, the boy gradually became aware that in his blur of acceleration he had learned about the forest—its birds, berries, mushrooms, roots. Instinctively, he had given them all names, and in order to do so, he had created a lexicon. Perhaps he’d been mute because he’d been born into the wrong language, into a tongue with unspeakable words. Now he possessed a language he could speak, one he could sing, if only there was someone to listen.
    He imagined that somewhere else on earth people were conversing in the language he had created.
    The boy sat on the weathered swing that dangled at the center of the glade like an amulet the forest wore. It rocked of its own accord—a rowboat riding gentle swells, a pendulum that would ticktock for infinity now that someone had nudged it into motion. The soles of his shoes, near worn away from running, brushed over the weeds and hissed a breeze. He unclasped the penknife to dig his initials into the wooden seat, but he couldn’t recall them. A memory found its way back to him, of a day at the park with his father. His father had lifted him into a baby swing and carefully secured him with a bar that fit across his lap—it prevented accidents but also escape. Having secured his son, his father seemed to lose control. The boy couldn’t see his father’s uncharacteristic glee, but he heard him laughing each time he pushed from behind. His father swung him gently at first, then gradually higher and higher until the boy’s mouth gaped open in a mute scream, a scream his father could not hear. He was pushing so wildly that the swing careened and its chains twisted, and the boy imagined they might snap. Between convulsions of his father’s hilarity, the boy heard a nurse, who was pushing an elderly lady in a wheelchair, exclaim: “Oh, Lordy! Look at that crazy white man flingin’ that boy!”
    If his father heard the comment, he ignored her, and continued flinging him up until, dizzy, the boy could hear an otherworldly vibration—solar wind, the music of the spheres, seraphim—whatever it was, its dissonance was terrifying.
    Later, as they walked home hand in hand, his father asked if he’d glimpsed the angels who played their harps on clouds, and the boy shook his head no, a moment of defiance for which he now, at least in memory, felt petty and ashamed.
    Oh, Lordy! This was no baby swing he was riding. He swung earnestly now, easily pumping over the trees. He swung in a straight arc to a steady rhythm, and the memory of his father vanished. He no longer needed its companionship, no longer felt empty and alone. It was as if he and the swing, sharing a single passion, were becoming one. Each pump of his body carried them farther into blue sky. The wind of his swinging gusted blossoms from orchards and parted fields of grain