Stopped for lunch by the bike path. I was drawn to this table because of the blue chair lift, secured to a post that suddenly reminds me of a hangman game. 

No one hangs here, thankfully, not even the beginnings of a stick figure. 

The phrase, “hang in there” comes to mind as I contemplate the out of place chair lift that goes nowhere, so that “in there” truly invites one to go within. 

What word prompted this game, this invitation to skip the violence of a proper hanging in favor of releasing the soul to swing on a chair? Was it a four-letter word gone astray, but for good instead of ill? 

“F this!” She thought. But instead of calling it all quits, she sat and reflected, because the gallows suddenly revealed themselves to be a resurrected chairlift bench. Surely, if this otherwise inanimate object could have a second chance, why not any human at the end of their rope. After all, the chairlift never reaches the end of the cable. It just goes round and round for a fresh perspective. And one is free to hop on or off. Though one must wait to do so at the proper beginning or end. There’s another obvious metaphor for life right there.

No. It must have been a ten-letter word: Continuity. That’s a much harder one to decipher. Thank goodness for this place to sit and ponder.