The dog pulled at her leash, and Andrew obliged.  They

walked along the roadway, and from time to time, Cashmere would

want to smell this bush or sniff that patch of grass, and because

Andrew was a bit lazy anyway, she got what she wanted.  They were

walking towards the old playground, the one that had the sign NO

TRESPASSING on the fence.  The one that had rusted monkeybars,

broken see-saws, and a warped slide.  The one that had a bent

merry-go-round, so that when you went 'round, one edge cut

savagely into the ground.  The one that nobody ever went to.  The

one that Andrew, upon being warned against the place by his

mother, immediately put on his must-see list.  She meant well,

but his mom had a dim understanding of a boy's desire to do bad

things.  And so here they were.  A boy and his dog.

     The playground was fenced in, the sagging gate secured with

a solid-looking padlock.  But the fence was old, and after

examining the bottom edges with an adult seriousness, Andrew

found a section that he could pull up and sneak under.  He

started in, but he felt a strong tug on the leash.  He looked

back.

     "Come on, Cashmere, let's go!"  The dog refused to budge.

"Fine, then.  I'll tie you to this post here so you don't run

away.  No use in both of us getting' in trouble."  Cashmere sat

patiently while Andrew fussed with the leash, finally getting a

semblance of a knot tied.  He lifted the fence up and scooted

underneath, and the dog barked in frantic alarm, but the boy told

Cashmere to shut up, and she did.



     He was amazed.  From behind the fence it had looked like an

old, run-down playground.  But once inside the perimeter, the

monkeybars didn't have rust, the swings looked fine, and the

slide was as straight and sturdy as a telephone pole.  He looked

back to the outside world for a minute, and he saw that it was

somehow... darker out there.  Like someone had turned down the

brightness on the TV, and the colours were washed away.  He

stared at this for a moment, puzzled.  Shrugging his shoulders,

he turned and walked over to the merry-go-round.  He gave it a

tentative push, and the shiny new merry-go-round twirled around

easily.  He watched it spin around, and his hand reached out to

give it another push, but its speed hardly dropped, and Andrew

suddenly saw that he was not alone.

     "Hi, there.  Wanna push?"  The blonde girl was sitting on a

support bar, smiling at him.  She looked about the same age as

him, but Andrew thought he had never seen any eight-year old girl

wearing such a fancy dress, white silk with embroidered velvet

flowers ringing her slender neck, her blonde tresses hanging just

below her shoulders.  He didn't know who she was, or why his

throat had just dried up like the Sahara, but he was powerful

curious to find out.

     "Uh, sure."

     He grabbed a bar and started to run around, pushing the

merry-go-round faster and faster.  The girl started to laugh in

delight, and threw her head back and let her hair wave.  Andrew

ran as fast as he could, and then jumped on.  The change in speed

almost made him fall off, but the blonde girl took his hand

calmly and pulled him back.  He grasped the support bar, panting.

     "Whee!  Isn't this fun?  I love the merry-go-round, don't

you?"  Andrew was holding on for dear life while, he noticed, the

girl was having no trouble at all.

     "Yeah, I like it."  He felt dizzy, and a small part of him

wasn't sure it was from the merry-go-round.  "Um, my name is

Andrew."  He smiled weakly, because the thing seemed to be going

faster and faster, and his grip was getting more tenuous by the

second.

     "Hi, Andrew.  My name is Missy.  I love going fast on the

merry-go-round.  Are you having fun, Andrew?"

     "Uh... lots!" he blurted out as he felt the sweat building

up underneath his grip.  One hand slipped, and she put her cool

hand on his, firming his hold.  He stared at her smiling face,

her eyes twin pools of deep blue water with nary a ripple in

sight.  He blinked.  Looked away.  The world was spinning around,

and for a moment it seemed that he was motionless and the world

was doing all the movement.  But then his grip threatened again,

and he was brought back to reality.

     "How... do you... hold... on?" he asked breathlessly.  He

was feeling a bit sick, and he had trouble believing this girl

was just sitting on that bar with no effort.

     "Why, with my hands, of course!  How silly.  You're a silly

boy, Andrew."  She was still smiling.

     "A... silly... boy..." he grunted.  His legs had slipped out

and were flying out over the ground.  He had a wild thought

     (when do we fly)

     and then his grip was lost for good, and he did fly, as a

penguin might.

     _I don't want to watch this_, he thought in mid-air,

closing his eyes.  The wind felt strange on his belly, lifting

his shirt up slightly.  His legs swung around and around,

spinning like the merry-go-round.

     He hit the ground with a loud THUD!  Cashmere barked, but

the bark was so quiet, Andrew didn't hear it.  He didn't move for

a second, the breath knocked out of him.  And then he looked up.

The merry-go-round was about twenty feet away.  Still spinning.

He groaned.  A second later, the girl was by his side, a look of

utter and complete concern on her face.

     "Oh my Lord, are you all right?  You really flew through the

air.  Anything broken?"  She rolled him over with surprising

strength, looked at his face, and her blonde hair tickled his

nose.  He laughed, and then they both began to laugh

uncontrollably.  They were like that for a few minutes.  Then

Missy was up and looking for something else to try in the

playground.  For a second, Andrew felt a terrible knowledge about

to surface, but it faded back to the darkness when Missy looked

back and favoured him with a sunny smile.

     They walked over to the see-saws, and he observed two of the

three moving up and down.  He squinted, and he could barely make

out four kids going up and down.  But their figures were like

mist.  She got on one end, and Andrew pushed on the other so he

could get on.  She barely weighed a thing, and he had to reverse

his end's direction quickly before it slammed into the ground.

     Outside the playground, Cashmere barked twice.

     Inside the playground, Andrew shivered.  He shut his eyes

tight, trying to slow his heart down a little.  A mounting

pressure in his head felt like a balloon expanding; when would it

pop?



     He pushed off, and he went up, and she went down.  She

giggled, and pushed off with her feet.  The ground rushed up at

him, and he met the sand with flexed legs.  He pushed off,

looking at his playmate.  She was flushed in the cheeks, which

seemed to be the only part about her besides the flowers on her

dress that had any colour.  He caught a whiff of roses, and

wondered if those flowers were real.  Her dainty white shoes were

dusty, and she was swinging her legs back and forth while in the

air.  She was smiling widely, and he found that he liked her,

without knowing why, even if he was a little worried about what

exactly was going on.  She pushed off again, and the ground

hurried towards him.  He landed, knees bent to their capacity.

He realized that she was really pushing hard.  He pushed off, not

really wanting to, but because there was some inner voice that

said go on, have some fun, don't worry about a thing.  He looked

back, beyond the fence, but he found he could see absolutely

nothing.  No; there was a shape, a grey, hulking shape that

seemed to rest against the fence on the outside.  It was quite

large, and with the sudden chill to his bones, Andrew quickly

turned back his gaze to Missy.

     She pushed off.

     It was like falling, his legs flailing with panic.

     One foot found the ground, and his knee tried to absorb the

impact, but the landing shocked him right up his spine.

     Without thinking, he pushed off.

     At the height of the see-saw, Andrew gasped.  He could see

over the treetops, he could see along the road, to his house, and

the cemetery, and the lake.  But they all seemed a bit faded, as

if someone painted the view and tried to rub it out.

     His stomach lurched, Missy's smile slipping from her face.

Impossibly high, the see-saw at an oddly steep angle, Andrew

tipped forward over the handlebar and slid down the beam,

crashing into Missy at the other end.

     Tangled up on the dusty ground, Andrew frantically looked

around.  All he saw was the playground, nothing else, but even

that seemed smaller than it was.  Where was the merry-go-round?

Didn't he fall off that thing?  Wasn't there six swings instead

of four?

     Missy pulled him to his feet.

     "Come on, silly, let's go on the slide."

     Andrew allowed himself to be led to the slide, and as he

walked backwards, watching the swings and the see-saw, they faded

slowly into the darkness.  Where was that gray shape that was

behind the fence?

     Fear clutched at his heart, and he turned back towards Missy

and the slide, which seemed more _solid_ than anything he

could remember.

     Missy's ever-present smile reminded him of his mother's

smile when she was having one of her headaches; forced and white-

lipped.

     He found himself at the top of the slide.  He looked down,

and all he could see was the slide plunging into that fuzzy

darkness.  Where was the end of the slide?  He couldn't see it.

He felt dizzy, and grabbed on to the handrail for balance.  He

managed to look at Missy.  Her head was bent at a weird angle.

Blood was flowing slowly down the back of her dress.  Her smile

looked like a vicious leer.  She spoke in a weird, earthy tone,

not at all like the sweet, innocent little girl tone of a minute

before.

     "Come with me, Andrew.  Come and view the riches of another

kingdom.  Come and join me in paradise."  She pointed down the

slide.  At the end

     (so far, oh so far)

     was a hole, a rip in the fabric of space, and through it

Andrew could see blue sky, green grass, greener trees, a

sparkling brook.  He thought he could see kids in that hole,

dancing and capering.  They were waving at him, beckoning.

     "What...?  Why...?"

     Missy smiled, and more blood flowed.  "No need to ask now.

Just come with me and live the life you want.  Follow me, Andrew.

Follow me..."  She went down the slide, leaving a trail of blood

leading to the hole.  She entered the rip, and the blood

disappeared, and she was dancing and capering with the others.

     His mind whirled around like a merry-go-round, and he raised

his hands to his ears in an effort to stop the spinning.  Looking

back, he saw the slide's ladder was gone.  All that was left was

the platform and the slide and the hole and darkness.

     _I'm drowning_, he thought dimly.

     His life flashed before his eyes.

     His mother smiling at her newborn child.

     The blue sky and the autumn rain.

     His father dressed up as Santa Claus, giving him a big candy

cane and a kiss on the cheek.

     The green grass and the summer sun.

     His brother running down the hall, screaming, his father

close behind with his leather belt hanging from his leathery

hand.

     The white snow and the spring wind.

     His mother singing to him as he rested in his bed, head

stuffed and nose running, her warm hands holding a bowl of

chicken noodle soup.

     The black night and the crisp winter air.

     His father pointing at something in the garage, his voice

grating and loud, his hands going to his belt.



     Andrew sighed, crouched down and sat on the slide.  The

pressure in his head seemed to ease.  A tear crept from his right

eye, and he blinked it away.  On the other side, Missy was waving

at him, laughing gleefully.

     He pushed off.

     The hole grew closer and closer, and his mind raced as he

imagined his new life in Paradise.  His thoughts were interrupted

by a faint sound.  The hole stretched towards him, but that

sound. A sound that seemed to gain strength over time.  A sound

that Andrew immediately identified as...

     "Cashmere!"  Suddenly his love for his dog came flooding

through, and then his love for his parents and his love for his

life and everything hit him all at once.  The hole raced towards

him as the end of the slide rushed at him.  "No!  I don't want to

go!"  The hole voiced a piercing cry as Andrew leaped off the

slide and hit the ground rolling.

     When he opened his eyes again, he was surrounded by a rusty,

old playground.  His ears heard the frantic barking and he rolled

over to face his dog, his wonderful dog, his beautiful, life-

saving dog.  He picked himself up, and as he scurried for the

fence, he thought he could see shadows of people, on the swings,

the monkeybars, the seesaw.  And finally, he thought he saw Missy

one last time on the merry-go-round.  Then his dog was jumping on

him and licking him and everything was fine.



                              * * *



     He was twenty years older, and things had barely changed.

The NO TRESPASSING sign was still on the fence.  The section he

had kicked in hadn't been repaired, and the playground looked

even worse than before.  Of the six swings, three had rusted

chains that had broken right off.  Part of the monkeybars had

collapsed, and the slide had fallen right over.  The seesaws were

all busted, and the merry-go-round was on a bad angle.  It all

looked so barren that he shuddered.  He braced himself, and

walked through the fence.

     No change.  Everything was still rusted and broken.  He

sighed in relief.  He walked over to the merry-go-round and

watched as it started to move by itself.  But slowly now.  He

moved over to the seesaw and watched the single intact seesaw go

up and down slowly.  And finally, one solitary swing went back

and forth, as if a little girl was on it, and for a fleeting

moment, he thought he could see Missy swinging, her mouth

soundlessly laughing and yet...

     Were those tears?

     He cried like a little boy.