CTS Writes

scream if you want to go slower – by Claire Travers Smith

Every summer, the funfair came to town. Our eyes lit up with the blaze of mawkish neon, saccharine shrieks sparkling in our ears. Merrily we’d go around, my big brother, little sister and I, waltzing and whizzing until the candyfloss scorched our throats. Orbited by night, knuckles white, we clutched the Chair-O-Planes chains for dear life, screaming “Faster! Faster!” out into the darkness.

One day, the black answered back.

He let go.

Every summer, the funfair still came to town. The same sweet sickening lure, the same blinding lurid lights. But all I could see was darkness. It, too, knew my name. 

Summer, the unfairest of seasons.

Small fingers wriggle and knot into mine.

“Can we? Please? Just once more?”

The hot, heady scent of sugar tugs at my gut as she hangs on my hand, my eyes brimming and spilling while neon starlight twinkles in hers.

“Alright. Just once more.”

And so, we waltz and whizz and scream “Faster! Faster!” until our throats are scratched dry, and our hearts become balloons which bob and dance in the hot night air.

No-one should have to ride this one alone.