The story that this scene belongs to met with fairly mixed reviews in class. I’m interested to see what you make of it. 🙂
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Grab the wheel, honey, the polished circled. The illusion of control makes the ride bearable.
His eyes washed over his daughter’s pale gentle cheeks. Worry painted her features; he only gave advice at the worst moments, in the face of impending unpleasantness. He wondered whether she wasn’t entirely unlike a dog, associating his advice with the master’s harsh and sometimes inexplicable hand of judgement.
Fear struck as the wheel began to spin faster than he was pulling. When he used his hands to resist it, the force tossed his hands away like a parent might slap rougly the hands of a child. His wrists popped and his hands flew with a loud plastic clunk into the inside wall of the cup. He looked at his giggling daughter; in mirth, she had closed her eyes. Perhaps she felt safe, still assuming he was in control.
Her laughter stopped abruptly and her brown eyes caught his off-guard. She held his eyes through his terror with a steady and confidence gaze that contradicted and complemented her youthful brightness and pushed him further into fear. Then, “Daddy,” she asked, “why don’t you tell me you love me?”
A thunderous crack drowned out his dumb response, and the cup teetered like a dying top. A sudden nausea struck him, but he noticed the teetering detract; the spinning became violent, clamping him against the bench. This can’t be happening, he thought madly. This can’t be real!
A second audible crack preceded a more violent swaying. John turned his head from side to side and felt the summer of the concrete and the winter of the humid air. The speed increased the tilt; he clenched his muscles, forcing shut his eyes and closing off his senses, leaving only his reeling consciousness inside the darkness.
His daughter’s eerie calmness and the absurdity of her question convinced him to open his eyes again. Behind her, the world spun into colored lines with indefinite borders. She alone remained in clear focus—even the cup blurred around the wheeling vortex, but he could distinguish her through the whirlwind.
Concern coated her features and he voice as she said once more, “Daddy?” A third crack dislodged the cup, which turned sideways, harped against the concrete floor, and bolted off, tossing two cups and the riding families aside, their bodies flying lifelessly, casualties.
The cup crashed into the dark hall of Space Mountain, and his daughter closed her eyes and fell limp. A loud crash deafened him as the cup collided with the track, rolling downhill and ripping out accelerator chains.
His daughter began to shake and squirm as the cup penetrated a neon orange tunnel. Her loose hands tightened into fists, and her head rolled from side to side randomly, quickly sometimes and slowly. Her teeth pressed against and then pierced her lower lip, and he saw her tongue lick blood off of her chin.
He reached against the hostile wind and the careening force of the cart. Even his own arms seemed to resist as if bound to his torso by rubber bands. He managed to reach six inches out, and then a foot. At the wheel’s circumference, his fingers and then his wrists and then his arms broke within a second, one tri-part crack. John wailed in pain and anger, pushing with his legs towards his daughter even as his useless arms fell back.
But the passion only lasted a moment. Through the surreal howl he heard his recognition that even if he reached her now, his ineffectual grip could not wake her, would only cause him pain as he tried with broken bones to seize her. His hollowed-out sense of paternal protection felt as vacant and vague as the false orange stars.
The cup hit a crest and at once derailed, breaking again the rollercoaster’s shell. Through the air he and she sailed; her eyes opened and her shrill and terrified scream beat out the freight-train tone for a moment. Her cheeks had turned ghastly and hollow in her momentous horror.
The cup fell magnificently into the ocean, but just before they hit the girl’s face lit up with a smile, and she seemed al of a sudden placid. The porcelene plastic shattered on impact, and John’s body skipped like a stone against the harsh and salty surface.
He crashed into a cresting wave that repelled him like an immortal wall, and he saw his daughter one last time through his pained delirium. She stood atop the final wave smiling. He sunk into the blue.
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Author: Greg Freed
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