Whispers from the Abandoned Fairground
When the storm passes, the abandoned fairground remains as if paused in a breath between songs. The gates swing on nameless rust, a hinge reminding me that echoes can outlive metal. The wind carries the faint scent of sugar and greasepaint, sweeter than fear, and I follow it through the empty ticket booth toward the carnival proper, where the Ferris wheel looms with a patient, dangerous grace.
The night wraps around me like a familiar, unwelcome coat. Dust motes drift in the glow of a distant streetlight, and every step stirs a memory I can't quite place—the laughter of a child, the creak of a ride starting up on its own, the soft thud of a drumbeat that has forgotten to stop. Something moves behind the stalls, not quite solid, not quite shadow, and I hear my name whispered as if from a mouth I never learned to trust.
“The lights remember your name, and the dark keeps the promises you forgot.”
I move toward the carousel, its painted horses now pale and tired as old teeth. The organ beneath them coughs a warbled tune, and the horses tilt their heads, as if listening for a cue I cannot hear. A single horse swivels toward me, its glass eyes reflecting the pale orbit of the Ferris wheel. The music slows, then sighs, and the chain above creaks with a life of its own—waiting for something I am not yet ready to give.
- Footprints circle the ground, never leaving—an endless roundabout that ends where I began.
- A torn ticket stub flutters in the air, always just out of reach, never discarded.
- Whispers coalesce into words I almost understand, naming each forgotten ride by memory alone.
- Candy wrappers curl into imperfect smiles, as if the fair itself is tired of pretending.
In the mirror-tunnel of the funhouse, reflections distort and reveal faces that are not mine. A family stands behind the glass, hands pressed to pane as if seeking to escape a room without doors. They smile without joy, and their whispers braid with mine until I can no longer tell where I end and they begin. The fairground asks a single question: what happens when a place that took so many memories decides to keep them all for itself?
When at last I step back toward the gate, the wind answers in a chorus of sighs. The lights flicker once, twice, then glow with a stubborn, stubborn warmth. I turn away, and the night closes around me, carrying with it the soft, inexorable truth: some haunts do not haunt us so much as haunt the space we leave behind.