A Day at the Fair

trying something a little different!

I remember that day, how the hell could you expect me to forget? Every day starts the same, you see. I wake up around seven, flatten out my hair, get a cup of coffee. I used to go and wake up Finn and Maggie when they were little, now Finn gets up by himself. I used to make them breakfast every morning, Finn likes scrambled eggs and sausage, but Maggie-she preferred ham, Finn gets his own breakfast now. Not because I won’t make if for him! What kind of a mother do you think I am? I love my son! Love him more than the stars in the sky! You don’t know what I see in him now, I can see through his eyes into his brain and I tell you, he doesn’t understand.

That day- Finn had been bugging me to take him and Maggie to the Fair all week, but I was teaching a summer class and had some papers to correct so I said we couldn’t go and he went sulking off. By mid-day though, I had had a change of heart and told them to get ready to go. Once we were all ready, it must have been a little after two in the afternoon when we got in the car. I had packed a bag with some apples, oranges, good things to eat. I’m wouldn’t feed my babies that deep fried garbage they sell at the fair. I had also put a change of clothes in the bag for Maggie, just in case she got dirty, or it started to rain.

We got there and, there were so many people, so many kids, fat ugly kids with chocolate running down their chins and snot running down their noses. I didn’t understand why Finn wanted to drag me and Maggie through such a place, but when I looked down at Maggie, her little face smiling up at me, her yellow curls bouncing around her head as she ran about with excitement, I figured that we could have a day of fun.

 We walked around, just taking in everything and it was a lot to take in. The little shops selling anything and everything from stuffed bears to lollypops, the biggest ones I’ve ever seen. I must be so much sugar in those- ha- I can’t even begin to understand why parents let their children eat such things. I guess they want their children’s teeth to rot away, so they can pay for expensive dental visits to show how much they love their children. We walked past the food stands, vats of oil and fat bubbling away, sticks of stinking meat ready for the fryer, it makes me sick just thinking about it, and of course, Finn wanted some to eat. I told him ‘no’ and went rummaging through my bag for an apple for him, which he ate despite the look of disappointment on his face. I’m a good mother, I would never let my children eat such unhealthy things.

As we walked, Maggie saw a little shop that was all pink and sparkling inside and she ran in. I quickly followed, not wanting to ever lose her in the crowd. She had been watching a show on television about fairies, and it seemed that this shop sold everything a little fairy could ever need. Oh how Maggie’s little face lit up when she saw a set of pink fairy wings, I had to buy them for her because when she tried them on, she looked just like a little fairy.

Then Finn wanted to go on a ride, but I told him that he had just eaten, so he would have to wait a half an hour first. That gave us enough time to go through the animal exhibits. We went to the petting zoo for Maggie and I really think she had a great time. I got her some feed from a machine and showed her how to hold her hand to the sheep could eat without nibbling on her fingers. I think Finn had a good time too, but that didn’t stop him reminding me when exactly 30 minutes had gone by and it was time for him to go on a ride. He picked the Ferris Wheel, which I foolishly thought was good, because Maggie could go with him.

Oh God how foolish, if I had known I never would have let them go together, I never knew the power an older brother can have on the mind and imagination of a child. I didn’t know, so I let them go, all the way up the stairs to the Ferris Wheel. I sat myself down on a bench to watch them, my little boy and my little fairy riding up in the big, tall Ferris Wheel. I thought, how Maggie must feel like a fairy up there in the sky, flying around and around, waving her magic wand and antagonizing her big brother. I thought that, and I feel into daydreams.

I dreamt deep, the images of the fairies on the television mixed with the images of my little fairy Maggie, her yellow curly bouncing around her face as she flew and played with the fairies on the television. So deep were my daydreams that when I heard a growing cry from the crowd and say a little pink and yellow winged creature falling from the Ferris wheel, nothing clicked. And then it was over, my dreaming gone with the sound of young flesh on pavement, the cries and screams from the crowd. All I remember was running, running to the place my little fallen fairy landed. Oh God in heaven, wipe that accursed image from my memory forever. I don’t even remember crying, I don’t think I really understood, I don’t think I understand now. There were police there I think, and paramedics, but there was nothing to be done.

An officer of the fair brought my little Finn down from the Ferris Wheel sometime later and I ran to him. What he said will forever scar my memory ‘why didn’t she fly Mamma? I thought fairies could fly?’ and then he saw her, lying there in a pool of blood and he grabbed my hand and started crying out ‘I didn’t know Mamma, I didn’t know’ I fell to the ground beside him and looked into his young tear filled eyes, the image of his dead sister burned into them forever ‘I wanna go home now Mamma, I wanna go home.’