by Colleen Marlow

The carnival by the seaside was a foggy delight, all color and light. People came and left their sorrows on the Ferris wheel, forgot their worries on the merry-go-round, so that eventually the whole place was steeped in sadness. The lights and the music tried hard to stay happy, but the melancholia invaded them, giving them a mournful personality.

Carnivals are the depositories of grief, the place where sorrow and sadness are turned into confections: fried bits of doughy sorrow, cotton candy sadness that melts in your mouth. Each time around the merry-go-round a dream is forgotten. Here at the seaside carnival the dreams are washed out to sea.