Swingset Mathematics
Upon reaching the swingset, trailing far behind those children, those beautiful little creatures, screaming with delight at not having fallen and scraped their knees, who had already discovered how to be fiercely competitive and narrowing the range of possible career paths (consulting, investment banking, insurance, home-making, cocaine), a small group of my friends gathered around the two swings which we were able to obtain owing to their sufficiently fast legs and somewhat established standing amongst the fairer ones, enjoying their metaphysical places at the tables of their juvenile Olympus.
Two swinging children with a small gathering surrounding them, the lot of us taking turns so that the aspiring ones such as myself could enjoy pendular flight for a few minutes and feel the joy of ascent afforded with such constancy to the others. Beyond the expected conversation of Star Wars, teachers, soccer, girls (gross), and singing the televisions commercial jingles we recalled from the previous week, somehow on this particular spring afternoon, with me in bad early nineties children fashion, back on the ground at this point, we began to discuss the various measures by which the world measures time.
With some degree of estimated, inherited accuracy, we were able to identify, enumerate and roughly define the basic units, me refraining after the measurement ‘year,’ allowing the others to stroke their puerile egos while shouting with pride Decade! Century! Millennium! before pausing. So what comes after Millennium? asked one of us, possibly me, although I am dubious. And then one of us, a maladjusted boy from England answered with such convincing certainty a generation that we found ourselves hushed, spell-bound, our eyes whirling, tracing his motion, him pumping his legs and his large, large head, commanding our unequivocal reverence.
I cannot remember when or how quickly this error was revealed to me, nor by whom, but I do recall those woodchips upon which we stood, processing what it meant to span one thousand years, and how radical it must be to exceed even that humungous lump of imprecision; this precocious wonder then oozed slowly over to a tear-welling and tear-suppressed realization of the fact that my swinging friends, our strange ritualistic circle, and myself would all be dead by the time a generation had whooshed imperceptibly past.
The recess bell rang, and we lined back up, good students that we were, to go continue inventing countries for Mrs. Foley.
