The Carnival

Fireworks, funhouses, and love on the beach

“The Carnival” is the second story in Litverse’s Summer Sunday Beach Reads Series.

The carnival is on the beach next to an ugly parking lot. Behind a limp fence, there is a carousel. There is one water slide, one funhouse, three galleries where you throw things, and one clown. People scream from spinning teacups. An old ferris wheel groans in circles, bringing passengers up high in the bone-white moonlight to look down at purple ocean beyond the lights and listen to the soft sulking of the tide.

He is in the funhouse in the hall of mirrors. Holding her hand. Her palm is clammy like chowder. He tells himself he likes it because he is too scared to let go. Because she could frown. She could ask why. Better to just hold it, he thinks. What if she’s thinking the same thing? What if she’s thinking the same thing? Better to just hold it.

Holding her in bed is the same: he holds her out of duty and stays up late looking at the ceiling, uncomfortable in his conviction, unable to dream.

There are a lot of us here, she says in the hall of mirrors. Behind her reflection are a thousand other reflections. Standing beside her reflections are his reflections. They are an eternity together. They are together for an eternity. The ring is in his pocket.

I want to marry you, he thinks.

Her infinite reflections look into his.

She drops his hand and he puts it in a fist, wondering if the sweat was his all along.

What?

I didn’t say anything.

But you were thinking it.

They walk out of the hall of mirrors.

*

They are halfway down the pier looking back over the dunes at the carnival. From a distance, everything is clusters of colors spinning to off-key music rising and falling on the breeze. In the moon-drenched sea, boats and buoys tumble silver as stars.

Here, he says. Here.

What?

I made this for you.

What is it?

A painting.

The painting: crimson, rust, ochre, maroon, rose, cherry, merlot, scarlet, berry, mahogany, ruby mixed together to show a deep red sun with a hungry mouth full of teeth. Under the sun, a person is brushed on a blood-red beach watching a crimson sea.

I don’t understand it.

It isn’t supposed to be understood. It’s supposed to be appreciated.

You made it for me?

For you.

She takes it from him, looks at it. The hand holding it falls to her side.

Let’s go get cotton candy, she says.

*
The carnival’s lights turn to dust. They sit on the beach with their feet buried in damp sand beneath the violet night. The water sighs, reaching for them. Falling short. Fishermen on the water set off fireworks that whine and crackle, flowers blooming and dying at the speed of light. Or fire? Smoke?

This is magical, she says. Her hand is cool in his.

Magical.

I wish this moment would last forever, she says.

Forever.

If there’s no time, then maybe it is lasting forever, she says. Maybe love is constant.

What?

What about before we loved each other? Did we exist then?

What?

Never mind, she says. Never mind.

Okay.

The fireworks fizzle to silence the soft dark like the murmurs of someone giving up.

*
Sleepy dawn. The sun unfolds mellow amber across the water. A gull circles and calls out, but there’s no response. An early wind stirs the sand at their feet. He awakens when she does. They stare at each other for a long time. He wants to marry her. He has the ring. He waited for this moment. The moment that lasts forever.

Here it is, he thinks. He unzips his back pocket, reaches in, and feels nothing but emptiness.

Did he forget the ring? He remembers picturing it in his hands. The hard, round shape of it in his back pocket. He remembers buying something to make her happy and remembers thinking he was going to buy a ring because this forever was inevitable.

Do you think, she says, we confuse reflections of ourselves for people?

He pats his pocket. Still searching but already hopeless.

Is everything that happens just based on what we feel?

Maybe there never was a ring. He can’t remember. He rolls onto his back beside her to look up at the sky.

A lonely cloud drifts over them. He points.

What do you think that looks like?

A mirror, she says. What do you think?

Not a mirror, he says.

Want another Summer Short from Litverse? Read “Destination Inc.”