One More Ride

There's a carousel in the park at the end of my street — chipped paint, half the bulbs burned out, horses frozen mid-gallop. The town shut it down years ago, chained it off with a CONDEMNED sign, and every kid in a five-mile radius took that as a personal invitation. The first time I heard it move, I was fourteen, cutting through the park on my way home from Mara's. The air was dead still, but I heard it: a low wooden groan, then the thin wheeze of a calliope, like a music box at the bottom of a well. It was turning. Slowly. Empty saddles rising and falling, going around and around — and on the far side, where the light didn't reach, small shapes. Riding. I told Mara the next day. She laughed, but her laugh had an edge, and that night she brought her older brother. We stood at the chain and watched it turn. Nobody was pushing it. The music was louder — a waltz, warped and slow. The shapes were clearer: children, or the idea of children, grey as cigarette smoke, gripping the poles like they'd been riding forever. Mara's brother — seventeen, fearless, stupid — lifted the chain and stepped over it. "One ride," he said. "I'm not scared of a broken merry-go-round." He climbed onto the nearest horse. It didn't speed up or slow down. He went around once, twice, and on the third pass he was laughing — not his real laugh, a thinner one — reaching toward the smoke-grey shapes like he knew them. Mara screamed his name. He looked at us, and his eyes were wrong — not scared, not blank, just far away, like someone looking at you from the end of a very long hallway. Then he let go of the pole. The carousel kept turning. He didn't come back around. We waited until dawn. It stood still in the grey light, chained and silent. No footprints on the platform. Nothing. They searched for a week. That spring the town tore it down — "safety hazard" — and planted marigolds over the spot. Something bright. Like an apology. I still walk through that park. And on windless nights, late enough, I can hear it from somewhere under the soil: a wooden groan, a wheeze of music, a waltz going around and around — and a laugh that isn't quite a laugh, calling my name, telling me there's always room for one more ride. So tell me — did your town have a place like that? Somewhere the other kids dared you not to go? I want to hear your story. I'll be here. Sleep tight. Don't ride anything after midnight. This story is: FICTION.