Echoes from the Abandoned Midway
The night wind huffed through the gate like a tired old usher, nudging the corroded iron until it groaned open. The midway lay in wait, a silhouette of laughter and color that had forgotten how to be cheerful. Ribbons of rain carved pale rivers on the pavement, and the air tasted of popcorn gone stale and something darker, something sweeter and wrong, like a memory you couldn’t trust. I stepped inside and felt the place tilt a degree, as if gravity remembered a different time when crowds pressed close and bells rang with genuine joy.
The Ferris wheel turned by itself, slow and ceremonial, its cars swaying with a rhythm that wasn’t quite human. The lights stuttered to life in a feverish heartbeat, one bulb at a time, until a halo formed around the track and the night itself seemed to lean in to listen. The scent of melted cotton candy lingered, though the stalls were hollow shells—bare frames of wood and rust, propped with frost and dust. A distant music box wheezed out a fragment of a tune, a fragment that sounded uncommonly like a lullaby meant for someone else’s dreams.
In the House of Mirrors, I found my reflection multiplied into a dozen versions, each wearing the same stunned expression, each mouth moving because the glass wanted a chorus. One of the echoes stepped forward from the pane, not me, but a child in a tattered clown suit with a grin that never quite met its eyes. The figure pointed toward a narrow alley where the booths should have been crowded with laughter, and where now only a single, flickering lantern held its breath. The lantern seemed alive with a patient, cruel whisper: you came back to remember us, we remembered you first.
They say the midway never forgets a name, only the way it is spoken. Listen long enough, and every bell toll is a reminder that you were part of the show once, and the show never truly ends.
More than a ruin, the fairground felt like a memory trying to stand up and forget itself at the same time. Here are the signs that you’re not alone with the echoes:
- A soft, persistent clinking as if someone is counting coins that vanish before you can see them.
- A carousel horse that pinches its eyes shut when you look away, then opens them again as if waking from a nightmare you once shared.
- A ticket booth that tolls a bell only when you pass, inviting you to buy back a moment you never knew you’d misplaced.
I left with a lingering tremor in my bones and a mind full of soft, terrible music. The midway didn’t chase me, exactly; it offered me something more intimate: a reminder that places with a good story never truly vanish. They simply wait for someone brave enough to listen for the next echo.