The Future- Part 3 (6/14/10)

John gave his ten year old daughter four dollars from his pocket, the year is 2020. The blonde girl snatched the bills and hopped across the fair toward the lily pad booth. Chris stood off a few feet, cigarette smoking between the lips and his three year old daughter sitting on his shoulders. Sighing, John looked through the concession stand trailers and stuffed carnival prizes as he leisurely pursued his blonde little girl bounding ahead. Beyond the fairground, cars parked on grass fields broiled in mid-afternoon sun. All Rhode Island was packed into the small Woodstock County Agricultural Fair for one last weekend of summer.

John rounded the corner of a fair-alley and he paused, a concessionaire-- wearing a yellow striped Dr. Seuss hat and a backpack overflowing with styrofoam-sponge lizards on wire leashes, long plastic horns and tiny confetti coloured stuffed dog keychains--knelt as a large woman dug through the backpack for a tweety-bird doll. After waiting a minute, John skirted sideways against a sausage stall and slipped past. John could no longer see his daughter, the lily pad booth was little distance ahead but she was not there. Children banged wood catapults with miniature sledgehammers trying to launch rubber frogs onto lily pads. John stuck his hands into his pockets.




The sky reddened and afternoon passed. Behind a sun bleached circus tent, Chris stood with a juggler and several clowns on their break. His daughter slept, a green plastic horn against her stomach, sitting on her father's shoulders. They laughed as one of the clowns joked about the woman running the sausage stall. The juggler looked middle aged, he pulled out a glass bottle he had perched in the elastic waist of his costume. Laughing, the juggler talked about his many children. Chris took a drink from the bottle.

John circled through the fields around the fair. Coloured lights had begun to flicker throughout the fair. He stopped a moment and watched as concession stands flipped on their flood lights. John hurried past as Chris, daughter on his shoulders, and two clowns urinated along the back of a circus tent. John grabbed a concessionaire with a striped yellow hat and begged him questions. Turning off and staggering down the carnival alley, John stopped and braced himself on a stall and gazed off at the Ferris Wheel's lights.