They assure you that these things are safe. All that weight hanging off a cable, moving pulleys, friction, wear and tear, but they assure you. And when they assure you with such confidence, you just have to believe them. Yet, I watch the gondolas creak and sway, and the cable trembles ever so slightly, and there is a little part of my brain that tells me ‘Don’t believe everything that they tell you.’
I stare up. Focused. Unblinking. Until everything starts going out of focus and fuzzy. Until there is a loud snap, like thunder, like the sky has been rent asunder. I watch as the first gondola starts falling to the ground. The next gondola balances precariously for a moment, teetering, and then like the great curtain has fallen and the crowd is rising up one by one in applause, they all start falling. The only applause, the screaming of its hapless victims and helpless onlookers.
I stare until I’m rudely shaken. I’m startled awake. The gondolas are still moving like ants on a cloud scouting mission. Nothing snapped. Nothing fell.
Had to be. Nothing really exciting ever happens to me.
I shrug and turn away.
Written for Sunday Photo Fiction: April 15, 2018
And as soon as he reached back to his hotel, it happened. He obviously missed it again, for nothing exciting ever happens to him 🙂
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O dear, I would much rather it stay a figment of his / her morbid imagination.
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