Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 121

This weeks picture was taken by Slovakian photographer Vladimir Simicek and distributed or owned by Getty Images. Bumper cars abandoned in the empty town of Pripyat near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine.

This one wrote itself. I love it when that happens.    

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here.

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Carnies

She’d been so excited; her and her best friend Marie getting ready to go to the fair. Depeche Mode, People are People, 12 inch vinyl on full blast in Marie’s bedroom. Hair, make-up – the works.  It would only be there a few days, so they wanted to make the most of it.

She still remembered the butterflies seeing him standing there between the cars of the Waltzer, spinning them faster and faster, making the girls inside scream. He’d laughed as he’d watched them. She couldn’t wait to be one of those girls and have his eyes on her too.

He hadn’t looked much older than her, only a couple of years, sixteen or seventeen maybe. His dark golden tanned skin from working outside had aged him a little. His dark hair and complexion off set by violet blue eyes that caught you like lightening and drew you in. They’d made her stomach jump every time they’d rested on hers, which ended up being quite often.

He hadn’t just laughed when he’d spun their car faster, he’d hung on and winked and chatted, asking her out, asking her to meet him on his break. She hadn’t hesitated.

And there’d been no time for lots of dates and getting to know each other, he’d only be there for a few days; they’d spent their time exploring each other’s mouths and upper bodies behind some the rides and caravans.

He’d wanted her to go further, but she hadn’t been ready. How she regretted that now.

Now? She was bought out of her reverie to look at the view in front of her. It hadn’t changed for decades, except for the undergrowth slowly taking it over. No one had dared to touch it after what had happened that last night.

She’d rushed along that night, having wasted time buying a special present. If only she had been earlier – even five minutes earlier – he might not have been there, he might not have been anywhere near where the cars had landed.

They hadn’t been the Waltzer cars – he hadn’t been working on them that night, he’d been covering for his friend on the Meteorite. If he’d been on the Waltzer he might have stood a better chance. No, he’d been working on a ride that had sat directly opposite the Octopus, so when a couple of its arms had worked loose he’d been in full view.

She wondered if he’d seen it happen, watched it in the slow painful way that disasters seem to unfold, as it had for her when she’d arrived on the scene to witness the devastation: the smashed and broken rides, the fires, the screaming people, the chaos, and blood ... so much blood.

And she’d rushed to what had remained of the Waltzers, and he hadn’t been there. And she’d run from ride to ride, hoping to see him, hoping to hear him, hoping that he’d be alive somewhere and trying to help others.

But he hadn’t been. He’d been crushed under the weight of a car that had worked free of the arm as it had collapsed, landing squarely across the Meteorite. They’d said he wouldn’t have suffered; they’d said it had been instant.

A tear rolled down her face. The abandoned twisted remnants in front of her stood as memorial of that fated night. There was talk from time to time of cleaning it up and putting a proper stone monument in, but no one wanted to face it; too much had been lost that night; too much of the town was buried here.