Short story- Lost at the Amusement Park

   

      The little boy was frantic and panicking. The humid air made it harder for him to think. Sweat began to drip down the side of his face as tears began to fill his eyes. Bright lights, screams in ecstasy, rides moving and spinning at high-speed cluttered the young boy’s thought concentration. The amusement park was packed with hundreds of people, strangers rushing past him. The little boy came to the amusement park with his sister and her friends. Cautious and frightened of the huge rides, the little boy waited outside the lines for his sister and her friends to get off. He felt completely ignored the entire time, watching everyone else have fun while he was dragged along. His sister’s friends teased him for being afraid of the rides. They tried to persuade him and convince him of the fun and thrill he’d experience on the roller coasters. When the little boy would look up at the speeding rides, and hear the loud shocking screams that were being projected from the people on the rides, he became more nervous. He would quickly shake his head in refusal, and sit and wait on the pavement waiting for them to finish each ride.

The little boy waited and waited at the end of the line where his sister arranged to meet him after the big roller coaster. He grew nervous, and anxious as the time slowly passed. The blistering heat of the sun made the waiting time feel much longer than usual.  As the big summer sun floated above the little boy, his face became flushed. He was so overheated that beads of sweat began to dampen his shirt. He lightly cried in concern as he rested his head in his clammy hands.

The big roller coaster was on its twentieth run since his sister and her friends went on it. He waited so long he memorized the exact pattern the coaster went in. He would sing the pattern to himself as he waited, but as he waited longer and longer he began to consider that maybe his sister wasn’t coming back for him after all. The song he wrote about the patterns of the coaster altered from a cheerful tune, to a haunting melody.

The boy memorized every detail of the coaster into his mind. The rusty red paint was peeling off the sides of the carts. The loud sound of the coaster traveling up the steep hill of the track ticked in his ears like a timer. The most horrifying remembrance of the coaster was the shrieking halt the coaster would come to at the end of the ride. The noise and the look of the awful jerk made him shudder. The repetition of the big roller coaster was beginning to make the young boy sick. He had lingered where he last saw his sister for what seemed like hours and hours. The little boy began to make his way through the amusement park in exploration for his sister and her friends. His trembling little hands uneasily tugged at the end of his red striped shirt in desperation for comfort. He dodged between and around the hundreds of strangers that paced and dashed past him to get in line for the rides. The little boy imagined himself trapped in a maze. With every step he took he swung his head from side to side peering in every direction in search for his sister. Unfamiliar faces clogged his sight. The boy visualized each ride functioning in every direction as a monster. As a death trap that took his sister away and never let her go. 

As the boy hobbled around the outlandish people in the park, he snapped out of his imaginations of the monstrous park rides and focused on the reality of the troubling situation he was wedged in. He grasped the understanding that for once in his life he would have to step up to the responsibility and be the hero. He doubted that his sister or any of her friends even noticed that he was forgotten. The little boy made up his mind that he would have to find them himself, and the only way to catch sight of his older sister would be from the highest point of the park. The amusement park spread over a huge portion of flat land. Gift shops, bathrooms, game booths, food carts and ice cream stands filled the gaps between the amusement park rides. Everything in the park was designed for entertainment purpose. The boy climbed on top of a bench and smeared the droplets of sweat off his forehead. With his tiny, muggy hands he blocked the sun from his sight to compare the heights of the rides. He scoped out the tallest rollercoaster that would allow him to find his sister. He was sure he would be able to find her from such a steep height; he assumed he would have a perfect chance to spot her from the top of the hill. 

After all the pressure and teasing the boy was put through from his older sisters friends, and the abandonment and trauma he dealt with while wandering the park, lost for his first time- he became fearless of the rollercoaster. As an advantage to the little boy’s height, he was short enough to sneak around the lines to make it to the front. The roller coaster was already there; all different kinds of people were seating themselves in the cart and fastening the safety bars. The boy jumped into the cold metal seat of the coaster and clutched the safety bar firmly. The wide coaster seat made him feel lonelier.  All of a sudden, the boy’s sister steps into the same cart. The boy’s face is filled with relief. The coaster tugged forward and the boy was reminded of the fear he had towards roller coasters. He wrapped his little arms around his sister, and the coaster slowly began to haul its way up the steep track.