Chew on this parable

Todd had been tempted by the swingset in his backyard since he could remember. His father had built it for him when he was born. But even at seven years old both mother and father forebade him to play on it until he was older. An injury was the last thing the family of three needed. Todd's own birth had cost enough in medical bills and from what he could tell, he owed them not to injure himself on a swingset in his backyard or anywhere else.

He kept himself content with matchbox cars in his room. He would mindlessly roll the cars back and forth and look out the window at the swings. There was a sandbox next to it and sometimes he saw neighbor boys playing out there. Someday, he thought, he would rule his own play area. He imagined flying to the sky on those swings and building ultimate sand cities in that sandbox.

Dinner time brought Todd to the table every evening with his mother and father who lavished him with green food and soft creamed butter for his bread. Their home was more than enough for hungry, needy young boys. During a dessert of frothy milk and pickled pears, shouts from boys playing in their yard filtered in through the closed windows and through the closed doors and through the hairs surrounding their eardrums and on into their comprehensive neurons firing currents which all communicated a sound of joy.

He could not take it anymore one day after having been ridiculed at school, he was in the second grade, for having a pair of glasses on his face. He got home and stomped on his glasses. Their crunch under his feet was a satisfying reminder of his ultimate freedom. He approached the swing with the caution and reverance of Aaron creeping behind the curtain. Todd sat on the swing and was amazed at the way it held him so wholly and competently. He slowly rocked back and forth, a smile growing large and then larger from his throat to his lips.

He played and swang and laughed for two hours until his mother and father arrived separately but at the same time in their respective practical wagon style cars imported from something somewhere.

Immediately, Todd recalled what his father had been telling him for the last seven years. "Son, if you play on those swings, you will get hurt and probably die. Until youre older ..." It was then Todd realized he had not been hurt in the least let alone had he died. Which was a relief to him at first, so he ran to his mother and his father and said, "I didnt get hurt! Im ok! Come try it with me!"

That evening Todd was sent to his room without dinner or dessert. And when he woke up in the morning, he found himself in the back of his fathers car. He drove and drove for hours until they came to a random crossing of two county roads. Todd's father reached over the seat, over Todd's lap and opened the back door. Out of breath from the difficult reach, he said to Todd, "You disobeyed. You knew better. Get out of the car." Todd was hesitant but he trusted his father.

After watching the car drive away, Todd stood incredulously for several minutes, assuming he would be back and they could laugh about the joke or at least go back home. Todd stood there for ten hours before sitting down in the dust and crying himself to sleep. He never saw mother or father again.