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Organised by
RogerDodger
Word limit
400–750
Twenty Minutes
The Ferris wheel ride lasts five minutes, but this is a half-truth. The ride itself lasts for five, but it takes a varied fifteen to get passengers inside and out.
The line moves. This wheel is taller than average, about ninety feet high, and holds twenty-five passenger cars. People step in the cart.
You move forward.
“Sorry. Wait for the next cycle,” a freckled teenager says. He’s about to press bold buttons on a controller, when a loud screech besieges everyone. A child, dangling off the arm of her mother, wails.
“I dun wanna go! I dun!”
“It’s not scary, Bobby.”
The toddler shrieks louder.
You think to yourself that she’d unequivocally win the blue ribbon for the fair’s not-so-annual Ear-Shatterer Competition—to make it fair, the judges would already be deaf.
There’s a sharp hiss and a threat, and the family steps out of line and exits. The relieved teenager motions you forward. You walk in. The people in line watch you through the glass and you, sitting alone, watch them back. Everyone’s eyes play ping pong.
Buttons are pressed. The wheel starts turning.
Five minutes. Or twenty.You glance at your watch and stare out the window.
‘Round and ‘round you go.
You spotted a couple above you.
Sonoma is afraid of heights. She clings to her boyfriend, Marlow, her arm making young, sweet, detestable love to his arm. As the ride begins, she let out a shrill, playful scream and simpers.
Marlow feels the heat between them. It is sweaty, uncomfortable, and he wants to yank it off and catapult it out the minuscule, ventilated side windows. He sprinkles his arm around her neck, an awkward half-motion. She giggles, admiring his jawbone.
“Can I kiss you?” He asks.
Her eyes say yes, but her smile tells tall tales.
He frowns. He summons his inner bravery and asks a second time.
This time, she nods.
Their faces melt together.
On the other end is a group of friends. Two boys. Three girls.
The boys from Graham High jump around. They're amped up. They try to stick their hands out the window to throw cotton balls or whoop praises or just to annoy Vanessa, but it’s too small. They can only squeeze a few fingers. The girls start yelling. Vanessa, in particular, is the loudest.
The teenager staff bellows out a warning from the loudspeaker. “Disorderly conduct will not be permitted. Stop or we’ll end this ride.”
They cease and desist.
Another girl, Ava, starts crying. The boys laugh, though it’s unclear what they’re laughing at.
The view is blocked.
This car, far below you, is quieter than the rest.
The silence cuts deeper than your lonesome silence.
Two people don’t say anything to each other. Don’t even look at or acknowledge one another. They see nothing and everything at the same time, and only watch the clockwork of the sun from the windowpane.
Five minutes are up. Now, they’re waiting to be let out.
Their silence will probably occur long after they leave.
Below the fairgrounds is a boy.
He is lost. A red balloon within a sea of dust clouds, haystacks, and giant stuffed animals.
Her tries not to cry and clings to his balloon as if losing it would be to lose hope itself.
He keeps searching, walking.
He lets the balloon go, but doesn’t look up or try to catch it.
He starts running and slams into the arms of a welcoming cowboy.
I watch you as you watch.
Your eyes are like microscopes hidden inside binoculars, ever-searching. They speak of images obscured and unexplained, haunting pictures, persistent films, storms that won’t go away.
What are you seeing? And am I part of your observations too?
Or am I simply a phantom, a shadow, lost underneath you?
You get off and someone is watching you.
You look for recognition, for familiarity. You frisk your memory for a face, a place. You search for through a lottery of eyes and hair and lips, but the frames in your anamnesis don’t match. You are strangers, connected by a single moment. Two people, contemplating.
But nothing.
She sees you walk away. You don’t look back.
She watches you enter the line for the fun-house.
Perhaps you’d meet each other again around another section of the fair. At the giant barbeque truck or inside the crafts building.
But this is unlikely.
She leaves now.
But you don’t know that.
The line moves. This wheel is taller than average, about ninety feet high, and holds twenty-five passenger cars. People step in the cart.
You move forward.
“Sorry. Wait for the next cycle,” a freckled teenager says. He’s about to press bold buttons on a controller, when a loud screech besieges everyone. A child, dangling off the arm of her mother, wails.
“I dun wanna go! I dun!”
“It’s not scary, Bobby.”
The toddler shrieks louder.
You think to yourself that she’d unequivocally win the blue ribbon for the fair’s not-so-annual Ear-Shatterer Competition—to make it fair, the judges would already be deaf.
There’s a sharp hiss and a threat, and the family steps out of line and exits. The relieved teenager motions you forward. You walk in. The people in line watch you through the glass and you, sitting alone, watch them back. Everyone’s eyes play ping pong.
Buttons are pressed. The wheel starts turning.
Five minutes. Or twenty.You glance at your watch and stare out the window.
‘Round and ‘round you go.
You spotted a couple above you.
Sonoma is afraid of heights. She clings to her boyfriend, Marlow, her arm making young, sweet, detestable love to his arm. As the ride begins, she let out a shrill, playful scream and simpers.
Marlow feels the heat between them. It is sweaty, uncomfortable, and he wants to yank it off and catapult it out the minuscule, ventilated side windows. He sprinkles his arm around her neck, an awkward half-motion. She giggles, admiring his jawbone.
“Can I kiss you?” He asks.
Her eyes say yes, but her smile tells tall tales.
He frowns. He summons his inner bravery and asks a second time.
This time, she nods.
Their faces melt together.
On the other end is a group of friends. Two boys. Three girls.
The boys from Graham High jump around. They're amped up. They try to stick their hands out the window to throw cotton balls or whoop praises or just to annoy Vanessa, but it’s too small. They can only squeeze a few fingers. The girls start yelling. Vanessa, in particular, is the loudest.
The teenager staff bellows out a warning from the loudspeaker. “Disorderly conduct will not be permitted. Stop or we’ll end this ride.”
They cease and desist.
Another girl, Ava, starts crying. The boys laugh, though it’s unclear what they’re laughing at.
The view is blocked.
This car, far below you, is quieter than the rest.
The silence cuts deeper than your lonesome silence.
Two people don’t say anything to each other. Don’t even look at or acknowledge one another. They see nothing and everything at the same time, and only watch the clockwork of the sun from the windowpane.
Five minutes are up. Now, they’re waiting to be let out.
Their silence will probably occur long after they leave.
Below the fairgrounds is a boy.
He is lost. A red balloon within a sea of dust clouds, haystacks, and giant stuffed animals.
Her tries not to cry and clings to his balloon as if losing it would be to lose hope itself.
He keeps searching, walking.
He lets the balloon go, but doesn’t look up or try to catch it.
He starts running and slams into the arms of a welcoming cowboy.
I watch you as you watch.
Your eyes are like microscopes hidden inside binoculars, ever-searching. They speak of images obscured and unexplained, haunting pictures, persistent films, storms that won’t go away.
What are you seeing? And am I part of your observations too?
Or am I simply a phantom, a shadow, lost underneath you?
You get off and someone is watching you.
You look for recognition, for familiarity. You frisk your memory for a face, a place. You search for through a lottery of eyes and hair and lips, but the frames in your anamnesis don’t match. You are strangers, connected by a single moment. Two people, contemplating.
But nothing.
She sees you walk away. You don’t look back.
She watches you enter the line for the fun-house.
Perhaps you’d meet each other again around another section of the fair. At the giant barbeque truck or inside the crafts building.
But this is unlikely.
She leaves now.
But you don’t know that.