CHAPTER 2:

A few resilient street lights guided Charlie through the neighborhoods. At this hour an uneasy stillness hung about the town. The houses surrounding his had been untouched by the storm, their inhabitants shut up inside. He heard the baying of displaced dogs. The farther he walked from his house, the cooler the air became. He would have fallen asleep where he stood if it weren’t for the apparition of a spinning disc of colorful lights deep within the nearby fairgrounds. Unsure if it were real, Charlie approached the spinning light, which took the shape of a ferris wheel as he neared. After a moment he realized he was running toward it, pulled along as if the eye of the storm were once again hovering overhead. Charlie knew about mirages and how dehydration or sleep deprivation could cause hallucinations; but if this were a mirage, why wasn’t it of something he subconsciously wanted, like a vision of his parents or his reconstructed home?

The ferris wheel towered above a dormant carnival. The carnival games, tents, and trailers were faded purple shadows under the great wheel of colored lights. At the curtained gate he searched for an opening, even a small tear he could climb through, but found none. He spied the lock, but it was on the other side of the fence. Even if he could reach it, he wouldn’t know how to pick it. Charlie got angry at his bad luck. He made it so far and finally found a place to rest, but could not get inside. This carnival must have been sent here just to mock him. He lifted his hands, then sliced the air with them, to dismiss the whole scene. At once, the lock popped and the gate opened. Charlie jumped back, terrified at what just occurred. It was not the first time he had made something happen when he was angry. Though he hadn’t quite mastered how to willfully make things happen, he had learned to suppress this strange gift. He looked around, checking for any witnesses to his break-in, then made his way through the turnstyle.

Growing weary after a day of anguish, he crawled inside of the bottom cart of the ferris wheel, wrapped himself in the Abbott’s pink blanket, and attempted to remember every detail of his mother's face: her soft, round nose, chestnut eyes and pink cheeks. Charlie looked mostly like his father, and knew he'd think of him every time he looked in the mirror. He imagined his blanket was his mother’s arms encircling him, and drifted to sleep in its security.