The Last Ride

Written for “It’s Story Time” where Jolene
has given us four prompts to work with. Also
written for FSS including an opening line from
Fandango’s Story Starter. All the prompts are
shown below; here’s where they took me.

At midnight, the abandoned amusement park came alive.

Augustus Waldo shuffled toward the Helter Skelter in his lucky underwear …. the polka-dotted pair he’d worn to every significant moment since 1987. Tonight felt significant.

He’d done something terrible a long, long time ago. He’d stolen the graduating class clown’s diploma right before the ceremony at Clown School, leaving poor Blinky Lebeaux without his credentials. Blinky would never perform professionally. Augustus had carried the guilt like a stone in his chest for thirty-seven years.

The spiral slide loomed above him, red and white stripes faded to grey under the moonlight, its bulb lights flickering as though breathing. A figure stood at the ticket booth …. a woman in a conductor’s hat, ancient and indescribably bored.

“How many times do people need to ride before it’s enough?” Augustus asked.

The woman tilted her head. Nobody ever asked that. They always asked how fast, or how tall, or how much. Never enough.

“Once,” she said, after a long pause. “Just once …. if it’s the right ride.”

Augustus climbed the internal staircase, each step a decade unwinding. He sat on the worn burlap mat at the top, looked out over the dark rooftops of the sleeping town, and let go.

He spiraled down in a long, smooth arc, the polka dots flashing, the wind pulling a laugh from somewhere he’d forgotten he had.

At the bottom, he felt considerably lighter.

“Blinky, wherever you are …. I’m sorry!” Augustus declared.

And the lights on the Helter Skelter blinked like it was New Year’s Eve!

NAR©2026
#FSS

The Prompts: 1. Lucky underwear; 2. Clown school; 3. Person who asks what nobody ever asks; 4. Person who did something bad a long, long time ago.

Fandango’s Story Starter: At midnight, the abandoned amusement park came alive.

This is “Helter Skelter” by The Beatles

It’s story time!

Fandango’s Story Starter #240

^{Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.}