Two Months Ago

Accordion music was coming from the center of the Spidermachine. As the legs slowly heaved upward, the music oozed and stretched out like taffy. At the apex of the stretch, with all the children now high up above their parents, perhaps even, the farthest they have ever been, or felt they have been from their mothers and sunday fathers...high above and far away... it was at this critical and existentially lonely point in their tiny lives, that the music would suddenly freeze and the legs would make a quick and violent jerk up-down-up-down. Tongues bitten, breath lost, the music would restart louder than before, popping, sputtering and gurgling on the way down in a false and mocking empathy with the children’s tragic wails. This went on over and over again. I must’ve stood there and watched it happen a dozen times, or at least until i finished my ice-cream cone. The tatooed carny got progressively gruffer and short-tempered with his little customers. I guessed he felt hurt and unappreciated. When he was that age, he would’ve given anything to get away from his folks. Anything. He would’ve enjoyed those few moments, high above and far away and wished it would last forever.

Aparna waved in the distance by the fat and shirtless cotton candy guy. His belly slowly turning the same pink as the candy in the August sun.