Most people live at amusement parks. Now that most of the houses got destroyed, after the war. But not this one. This one is special. This park has been left to riot among the rats. I have wondered why adults shy away from this place. But little kids dare each other to enter the waste land. Some never return. The ones that do return just stare into the wind. It's my time to enter the park, this is my third dare to enter though the gates. But, I have refused before now. Hearing the gate creak as my hands push forward. As my feet start sizzling as I take the first into the park. That's when I realized that the park wasn't abandoned at all. It was inhabited. A whole world made out of of what our world had discarded, creatures and all.
Up to Down Round and Round Life is full of them Rejected and Accepted Ideas will always be Left behind here Thats when I realized That the park wasn't abandoned At all It was inhabited By the ideas that no one likes The ideas that are rejected Inventions, ideas, and toys The toys that little girls and boys Loose through the years A world made up of toys and discarded items The ideas that were once in your head Then float off to the ever midst Of ones mind Then those random Whatchama call its that Didn't make the cut Or that became outdated Between all of these things Nothing changes except for when I'm added to this land of Misfits Such as life goes on With no change
The old metal fence creaked in the breeze that carried our narrow smoke rings away from our mouths. I was uncomfortable with my back pressed against a pile of splintered wood and my feet resting in a murky puddle. I could see the old, dilapidated roller coasters from where I stood, but it was hard to focus on the dull tracks and rotting wood as clouds formed steadily in front of my eyes. "This place is a drag," the boy beside me drawled. I didn't recognize him anymore; everything was blurry...blurry...blurry. My eyes closed without the slightest reluctance and barely fluttered at the sound of a loud crash beside me. "You're a drag," I mumbled, laughing softly at the meaningless words. He didn't respond. Why didn't he respond? Didn't the boy I come with have a smart mouth? Or did I even know the boy I came with. Panic flooded my body more quickly than the toxic smoke that strangled my lungs. My eyes shot open and a scream caught in my throat. He soothed it with his gaze but I knew that I was standing beside someone different than the boy I had come with. Even when you're slightly dazed you would remember such startling blue eyes that seemed to glow like Christmas lights upon filthy face. If words were forming in my mind they did not seem to translate for my mouth. I stared at him in silence until my eyes were drawn downward. My companion lay unconscious at my feet. "You shouldn't be here," the stranger rasped. "This is no place for the living." "I hate to ask stupid questions," I said slowly. "But aren't you kind of alive." I reached out and prodded his shoulder experimentally. He felt very solid but cold, as cold as ice. I shuddered and stepped back until I collided with the splintered wooden heap that imprisoned me. "No, I'm most certainly not alive. To live you have to feel; with your fingers, with your hands, with your heart. I feel nothing. The world is numb to me and I to it. It's as if I never existed only that I was meant to exist." "I'm not quite sure that I'm in the best condition mentiologically to follow your uh empatheticallyish riveting tale of emotional bonfires," I murmured, waving my right arm aimlessly towards his head. His eyebrows arched at my incoherent statement. "Your mentiological condition, as you so eloquently put it, has nothing to do with the inability to understand me. It's the overall indifference of society to people like me." "Does that mean you are living." "No." "Are you dead." "Death has befallen me but I still remain." I tried to ponder what he had said. He had died, but he was not dead. "Are you a zombie." He frowned and replied, "you would say that, wouldn't you. Narrow minded human." "So you confess that you're not human?" "I was once." My brain began to warm up, whirling frantically around the words he released. "So, if you're not living and you're not dead and you aren't a zombie, what are you?" "I am murdered." "You mean you were murdered." "I am murdered." "You have been murdered?" "I am murdered." I rubbed my temples, "enough! I'm done with your riddles. Just tell me who you are or what you are or whatever that heck you want to tell me!"
"I am murdered. Here, you are either murdered or unborn. The unborn lack the connection of life," he gestured towards his stomach where a belly button would be. "Each life that is taken unnaturally comes here to grow. Not to live, but to serve out their sentence in existence. We may not return home until we reach the day when God had intended us to die." My mouth hung open him. I didn't want to believe him. I wanted to think that this was all an elaborate hoax or a bad trip. But the look in his eyes convinced me. It was beyond hunger for food or love; it was a hunger for life. That's when I realized that the park wasn't abandoned at all. It was inhabited. A whole world made of what our world had discarded, humans included. "Show me," I whispered. He shook his head and backed away. "What my eyes perceive is not for the living." But I could see it. Maybe I was imagining it but the dull tracks and rotting wood were not what they had appeared to be. Roller coasters made out of dresses and toys; items that had been loved and thrown aside, created and thrown aside. Ideas that had been conceived and abandoned, just like the unborn, formed the fence that contained this world of forgotten outcasts. "How did you die?" His hand traced a thin scar around his neck. "My half-brother killed me because he did not have a mother and he wanted all of the attention from mine. When you are here you have a lot of time to think about your death if you can remember it. I have forgiven him because I know the unborn, those whose mothers killed them. It doesn't matter that they can't recall her, they all know they were betrayed. Every abused animal that ends up here, every victim of 9/11 and Columbine all ended up here. It is a graveyard for the spirits." "Can't you leave." "I cannot live again, I cannot leave." "What if I helped you." "You cannot." "But I have to," I screamed. The dull haze that had enveloped my senses was gone and I craved it. I didn't want to feel all of this. Tears slid freely down my face as I watched the lifeless boy. He grasped my hand suddenly in his and held it close to his heart. "Go," he whispered. "Do not tell people what you have seen, they won't believe you. But go into the world and stop the flow. I don't belong here, nobody does. Save them." "How?" "There's always a way." I blinked away the tears and he was gone as quickly as he had appeared. My companion stood once more, joint hanging lazily from the corner of his mouth. "If you want I can show you a real good time." I looked up from my hand, still icy from the touch of the murdered. "What?" "You called me a drag; let me show you a good time." I swatted the joint out of his mouth and pushed him away. "You senseless jerk! What good is smoking this stuff, all you do is forget and what good is forgetting?" "Whoa, chill out." "No, I have work to do and it's starts with straightening out people like you. We're leaving." His wide eyes followed me as I walked purposefully to the gated entrance. Pushing it open I motioned for him to walk through. Some inexplicable combination of emotions flitted across his face; anger at first and then maybe relief because somebody was finally paying attention to him, caring for him. He shuffled towards me. Once he was past me I looked over my shoulder for the last time and examined the piles of discarded items and ideas that looked like a run down amusement park once more. "There's always away," the wind seemed to whisper as it went on pushing at the unyielding fence that guarded the unliving.
I slowly opened my eyelids to discover that I had been asleep. I rubbed my bare eyes and began to lift myself off of the cold pavement, dusting off the filth from my jeans. I blinked. The landscape directly in front of me was barren, except for a discolored, rickety roller coaster that swept off of the ground and through the air. I turned my head to see a swing set, each seat slowly creaking as the wind swept through the metal chains. To its right sat a wooden ladder that led to a plastic yellow slide. I inhaled the putrid smell of rust as the air lingered around my face. An abandoned park. As I began to step forward, I could barely make out the faint cry of an infant in the breeze. I turned my head. A small figure was barely visible from beyond the hills. I squinted as the speck steadily grew more distinct. The cry of the child began to project, echoing in the distance. As the outline approached, I recognized it as one of a little girl. Her amber locks were woven into neat plaits and fell gently onto her shoulders. Her ghostly pale face was dotted with freckles, and she wore a plain white dress, with lace sleeves reaching her white wrists. She approached me, her pace steady and somber. In her arms, she held a bundle of blankets from which the delicate voice of an infant was heard. She came within a few feet of me and stopped, her plain expression studying my features. I stared back. The baby stopped crying abruptly. The girl took a step to the side, so that her profile was facing me. She closed her eyes and screamed at the top of her lungs. "NEW DELIVERY!" She regained her blank expression as she waited for a response. Suddenly, quick taps of movement could be observed as hundreds of children began to pour out of the fog that surrounded the gray landscape. Left and right, boys and girls, blondes and brunettes, big and little. The pale girl's face had softened slightly at the arrival of these new children. They crowded around the girl in large numbers, peeking into the opening of the blanket and grinning. Gasps and awes could be heard as each individual took a turn at observing the baby. A sudden silence swept over the grounds, and each child began to lift their heads in unison, all eyes transfixed on me. I immediately felt the urge to speak. "Ummmm, hello... I...I was wondering if you could tell me where I am?" Every face remained expressionless as the girl holding the child stepped towards me. "This is our world." She spoke gently and very quietly. I stared. "What...world?" "This is where children come when they are not wanted by their mothers. This is where children come when they are deemed unfit to enter the mortal world. When they are discarded like a bundle of trash. This is where the unborn come, to live the life that was created for them." Her expression remained blank as she said this. Her pale, glistening eyes rested on me, scanning for some sign of understanding.That's when I realized that the park wasn't abandoned at all. It was inhabited. A whole world made of what our world had discarded, creatures included.
The only thing heard Was the bottom of my shoes Hitting the cracked, blazing concrete I could see the heat radiating off of the pavement As each step moved me closer to the roller coaster, The roller coaster that changed me, The one that flipped me, Jolted me, And took me hostage with its complicated buckle But as I looked at it now Surrounded by broken carnival rides I began to see the real effort put into making it All the tools that must have been needed To make all the rides, All the booths, Even the land that was underneath me However, this small little carnival was empty Abandoned, as most people say And as being in the category of "most people," I believed them.
I roamed this little place a little more Walking the park in circles, I passed the rollercoaster three, maybe four, times But the last time I circled it I stopped and stared at the damaged roller coaster Taking in its ruggedness
That's when I realized That the park wasn't abandoned at all It was inhabited A whole world made of what our world had discarded, Creatures included.
"Were going on an adventure." Her small hands twirled and made their way into my palm, and she tugged me forward. Her little legs pulled me deep into the woods, and off the trail. "Zoe stop, where are you taking me? Moms going to be home soon and she'll wonder where we are." She turned to face me with her blue eyes wide and her cheeks puffed out. "SHHH. It's a secret. Shhhhh. Go, go!" "Zoe. Why did you bring me back here all that's here is an empty old park." The slide was long ago rusted and the breeze wasn't enough to make the swings sway. "Can't you see them? They said they knew you." "Zoe, you're crazy." "Daddy can't see them. They said he's to old. Mommy can't either, she's too mature. They said you'd forget, like grown up kids always do. You don't think thoughts twice when you have real things to do instead." Zoe sighed and slumped on the swing. "They said that you made you, and you were best friends. Can't you see them?" That's when I realized that the park wasn't abandoned at all, it was inhabited. A whole world made of what our world had discarded, creatures included.
You'd never guess the things that lived at Sefton Hill Amusement Park. There's bodies ontop of bodies, blood pools among blood pools. It's horrific. After the crash, they thought they had collected all the dead bodies, but they were wrong. If you were to go there between 7-1 P.M., don't plan on returning. You'll never come back. No one believes me how this is actually true, but there's still people there, I promise. That's when I realized the park wasn't abandoned at all. It was inhabited. A whole world of what our world had discarded. Creatures included.
Most people live at amusement parks. Now that most of the houses got destroyed, after the war. But not this one. This one is special. This park has been left to riot among the rats. I have wondered why adults shy away from this place. But little kids dare each other to enter the waste land. Some never return. The ones that do return just stare into the wind. It's my time to enter the park, this is my third dare to enter though the gates. But, I have refused before now. Hearing the gate creak as my hands push forward. As my feet start sizzling as I take the first into the park. That's when I realized that the park wasn't abandoned at all. It was inhabited. A whole world made out of of what our world had discarded, creatures and all.
ReplyDeleteUp to Down
ReplyDeleteRound and Round
Life is full of them
Rejected and Accepted
Ideas will always be
Left behind here
Thats when I realized
That the park wasn't abandoned
At all
It was inhabited
By the ideas that no one likes
The ideas that are rejected
Inventions, ideas, and toys
The toys that little girls and boys
Loose through the years
A world made up of toys and discarded items
The ideas that were once in your head
Then float off to the ever midst
Of ones mind
Then those random
Whatchama call its that
Didn't make the cut
Or that became outdated
Between all of these things
Nothing changes except for when
I'm added to this land of Misfits
Such as life goes on
With no change
The old metal fence creaked in the breeze that carried our narrow smoke rings away from our mouths. I was uncomfortable with my back pressed against a pile of splintered wood and my feet resting in a murky puddle. I could see the old, dilapidated roller coasters from where I stood, but it was hard to focus on the dull tracks and rotting wood as clouds formed steadily in front of my eyes.
ReplyDelete"This place is a drag," the boy beside me drawled. I didn't recognize him anymore; everything was blurry...blurry...blurry. My eyes closed without the slightest reluctance and barely fluttered at the sound of a loud crash beside me.
"You're a drag," I mumbled, laughing softly at the meaningless words. He didn't respond. Why didn't he respond? Didn't the boy I come with have a smart mouth? Or did I even know the boy I came with. Panic flooded my body more quickly than the toxic smoke that strangled my lungs. My eyes shot open and a scream caught in my throat. He soothed it with his gaze but I knew that I was standing beside someone different than the boy I had come with. Even when you're slightly dazed you would remember such startling blue eyes that seemed to glow like Christmas lights upon filthy face. If words were forming in my mind they did not seem to translate for my mouth. I stared at him in silence until my eyes were drawn downward. My companion lay unconscious at my feet.
"You shouldn't be here," the stranger rasped. "This is no place for the living."
"I hate to ask stupid questions," I said slowly. "But aren't you kind of alive." I reached out and prodded his shoulder experimentally. He felt very solid but cold, as cold as ice. I shuddered and stepped back until I collided with the splintered wooden heap that imprisoned me.
"No, I'm most certainly not alive. To live you have to feel; with your fingers, with your hands, with your heart. I feel nothing. The world is numb to me and I to it. It's as if I never existed only that I was meant to exist."
"I'm not quite sure that I'm in the best condition mentiologically to follow your uh empatheticallyish riveting tale of emotional bonfires," I murmured, waving my right arm aimlessly towards his head. His eyebrows arched at my incoherent statement.
"Your mentiological condition, as you so eloquently put it, has nothing to do with the inability to understand me. It's the overall indifference of society to people like me."
"Does that mean you are living."
"No."
"Are you dead."
"Death has befallen me but I still remain."
I tried to ponder what he had said. He had died, but he was not dead. "Are you a zombie."
He frowned and replied, "you would say that, wouldn't you. Narrow minded human."
"So you confess that you're not human?"
"I was once."
My brain began to warm up, whirling frantically around the words he released. "So, if you're not living and you're not dead and you aren't a zombie, what are you?"
"I am murdered."
"You mean you were murdered."
"I am murdered."
"You have been murdered?"
"I am murdered."
I rubbed my temples, "enough! I'm done with your riddles. Just tell me who you are or what you are or whatever that heck you want to tell me!"
"I am murdered. Here, you are either murdered or unborn. The unborn lack the connection of life," he gestured towards his stomach where a belly button would be. "Each life that is taken unnaturally comes here to grow. Not to live, but to serve out their sentence in existence. We may not return home until we reach the day when God had intended us to die."
DeleteMy mouth hung open him. I didn't want to believe him. I wanted to think that this was all an elaborate hoax or a bad trip. But the look in his eyes convinced me. It was beyond hunger for food or love; it was a hunger for life. That's when I realized that the park wasn't abandoned at all. It was inhabited. A whole world made of what our world had discarded, humans included. "Show me," I whispered. He shook his head and backed away.
"What my eyes perceive is not for the living."
But I could see it. Maybe I was imagining it but the dull tracks and rotting wood were not what they had appeared to be. Roller coasters made out of dresses and toys; items that had been loved and thrown aside, created and thrown aside. Ideas that had been conceived and abandoned, just like the unborn, formed the fence that contained this world of forgotten outcasts.
"How did you die?"
His hand traced a thin scar around his neck. "My half-brother killed me because he did not have a mother and he wanted all of the attention from mine. When you are here you have a lot of time to think about your death if you can remember it. I have forgiven him because I know the unborn, those whose mothers killed them. It doesn't matter that they can't recall her, they all know they were betrayed. Every abused animal that ends up here, every victim of 9/11 and Columbine all ended up here. It is a graveyard for the spirits."
"Can't you leave."
"I cannot live again, I cannot leave."
"What if I helped you."
"You cannot."
"But I have to," I screamed. The dull haze that had enveloped my senses was gone and I craved it. I didn't want to feel all of this. Tears slid freely down my face as I watched the lifeless boy. He grasped my hand suddenly in his and held it close to his heart.
"Go," he whispered. "Do not tell people what you have seen, they won't believe you. But go into the world and stop the flow. I don't belong here, nobody does. Save them."
"How?"
"There's always a way."
I blinked away the tears and he was gone as quickly as he had appeared. My companion stood once more, joint hanging lazily from the corner of his mouth.
"If you want I can show you a real good time."
I looked up from my hand, still icy from the touch of the murdered. "What?"
"You called me a drag; let me show you a good time."
I swatted the joint out of his mouth and pushed him away. "You senseless jerk! What good is smoking this stuff, all you do is forget and what good is forgetting?"
"Whoa, chill out."
"No, I have work to do and it's starts with straightening out people like you. We're leaving." His wide eyes followed me as I walked purposefully to the gated entrance. Pushing it open I motioned for him to walk through. Some inexplicable combination of emotions flitted across his face; anger at first and then maybe relief because somebody was finally paying attention to him, caring for him. He shuffled towards me. Once he was past me I looked over my shoulder for the last time and examined the piles of discarded items and ideas that looked like a run down amusement park once more.
"There's always away," the wind seemed to whisper as it went on pushing at the unyielding fence that guarded the unliving.
I slowly opened my eyelids to discover that I had been asleep. I rubbed my bare eyes and began to lift myself off of the cold pavement, dusting off the filth from my jeans. I blinked. The landscape directly in front of me was barren, except for a discolored, rickety roller coaster that swept off of the ground and through the air. I turned my head to see a swing set, each seat slowly creaking as the wind swept through the metal chains. To its right sat a wooden ladder that led to a plastic yellow slide. I inhaled the putrid smell of rust as the air lingered around my face. An abandoned park.
ReplyDeleteAs I began to step forward, I could barely make out the faint cry of an infant in the breeze. I turned my head. A small figure was barely visible from beyond the hills. I squinted as the speck steadily grew more distinct. The cry of the child began to project, echoing in the distance. As the outline approached, I recognized it as one of a little girl. Her amber locks were woven into neat plaits and fell gently onto her shoulders. Her ghostly pale face was dotted with freckles, and she wore a plain white dress, with lace sleeves reaching her white wrists. She approached me, her pace steady and somber. In her arms, she held a bundle of blankets from which the delicate voice of an infant was heard. She came within a few feet of me and stopped, her plain expression studying my features. I stared back. The baby stopped crying abruptly. The girl took a step to the side, so that her profile was facing me. She closed her eyes and screamed at the top of her lungs.
"NEW DELIVERY!"
She regained her blank expression as she waited for a response. Suddenly, quick taps of movement could be observed as hundreds of children began to pour out of the fog that surrounded the gray landscape. Left and right, boys and girls, blondes and brunettes, big and little. The pale girl's face had softened slightly at the arrival of these new children. They crowded around the girl in large numbers, peeking into the opening of the blanket and grinning. Gasps and awes could be heard as each individual took a turn at observing the baby. A sudden silence swept over the grounds, and each child began to lift their heads in unison, all eyes transfixed on me. I immediately felt the urge to speak.
"Ummmm, hello... I...I was wondering if you could tell me where I am?"
Every face remained expressionless as the girl holding the child stepped towards me.
"This is our world." She spoke gently and very quietly. I stared.
"What...world?"
"This is where children come when they are not wanted by their mothers. This is where children come when they are deemed unfit to enter the mortal world. When they are discarded like a bundle of trash. This is where the unborn come, to live the life that was created for them."
Her expression remained blank as she said this. Her pale, glistening eyes rested on me, scanning for some sign of understanding.That's when I realized that the park wasn't abandoned at all. It was inhabited. A whole world made of what our world had discarded, creatures included.
The only thing heard
ReplyDeleteWas the bottom of my shoes
Hitting the cracked, blazing concrete
I could see the heat radiating off of the pavement
As each step moved me closer to the roller coaster,
The roller coaster that changed me,
The one that flipped me,
Jolted me,
And took me hostage with its complicated buckle
But as I looked at it now
Surrounded by broken carnival rides
I began to see the real effort put into making it
All the tools that must have been needed
To make all the rides,
All the booths,
Even the land that was underneath me
However, this small little carnival was empty
Abandoned, as most people say
And as being in the category of "most people,"
I believed them.
I roamed this little place a little more
Walking the park in circles,
I passed the rollercoaster three, maybe four, times
But the last time I circled it I stopped and stared at the damaged roller coaster
Taking in its ruggedness
That's when I realized
That the park wasn't abandoned at all
It was inhabited
A whole world made of what our world had discarded,
Creatures included.
"Were going on an adventure." Her small hands twirled and made their way into my palm, and she tugged me forward. Her little legs pulled me deep into the woods, and off the trail. "Zoe stop, where are you taking me? Moms going to be home soon and she'll wonder where we are." She turned to face me with her blue eyes wide and her cheeks puffed out. "SHHH. It's a secret. Shhhhh. Go, go!"
ReplyDelete"Zoe. Why did you bring me back here all that's here is an empty old park." The slide was long ago rusted and the breeze wasn't enough to make the swings sway.
"Can't you see them? They said they knew you."
"Zoe, you're crazy."
"Daddy can't see them. They said he's to old. Mommy can't either, she's too mature. They said you'd forget, like grown up kids always do. You don't think thoughts twice when you have real things to do instead." Zoe sighed and slumped on the swing. "They said that you made you, and you were best friends. Can't you see them?"
That's when I realized that the park wasn't abandoned at all, it was inhabited. A whole world made of what our world had discarded, creatures included.
You'd never guess the things that lived at Sefton Hill Amusement Park. There's bodies ontop of bodies, blood pools among blood pools. It's horrific. After the crash, they thought they had collected all the dead bodies, but they were wrong. If you were to go there between 7-1 P.M., don't plan on returning. You'll never come back. No one believes me how this is actually true, but there's still people there, I promise. That's when I realized the park wasn't abandoned at all. It was inhabited. A whole world of what our world had discarded. Creatures included.
ReplyDelete