Nightmare Fuel, Day the First - Statement from the Sacred Fairgrounds, April 2093

So begins the Nightmare Fuel project proper.

We have our usual suspects joining the festivities; Charles Moore and Jenny Persson both wrote "haunted fairground" stories, though to different effect. I love the way Persson worked with sound as well as sight, and loved the otherwordly, classic horror feel of Moore's. We also  get a neatly sardonic twist from Samantha Dunway Bryant, and from Iylanna  an admitted cheat in an older piece, but quite a lovely one. Kary Gaul also wrote flash and, like me, tied the wheel to a deeper meaning.

And my piece? It follows, just over a century from now.

Statement at the Sacred Fairgrounds, April 9, 2093

The two hundredth years after the first Great Wheel should have been a special time for us.

It should have been a time of celebration, two hundred years since Gale had built the first great wheel in the City of Wind.

Two hundred years is a long time.

Long enough for The Wheel to fallen from a great feat of engineering to a child's plaything to the very symbol for our way in the world. For us to take it as our symbol.

And for them to persecute us.

You heard the proclamation, months ago,

"Our land was founded by the cross, not the wheel. You see someone on the wheel, some crazy who thinks an old fairground toy is the way to heaven, don't you just wanna nail that bastard to a cross and march them outta the country?"

And yes, you heard the nation rise up against them. That they'd ride the wheel with us, enough of them to make a difference.

That we'd not be alone, that nobody was going to tear the wheels down, nobody would march us away. You heard them say, one after the other, "Today, we are all children of the Wheel."

And you saw me weep, but didn't know why.

The truth is that if all proclaim themselves Children of the Wheel, then none are. It becomes just a wheel, just a nice view.  A toy.

A way to thumb their noses at the leader, while still thumbing them at us.


That was in May. Nearly three weeks since "All were Children of the Wheel". You see who is here now, on April the Ninth? Just you, and just me.

It wouldn't have mattered. None of them can see where the wheel starts, or where it ends.

So come. Let it spin idle and empty, one last time before they take it down.

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Dedicated to Colin Kaepernick