This is shutting down. No one else sees it, because the foam pets are selling nicely. The goldfish are being won. They are playing "Stairway to Heaven" yet again on the Fire Loop. Appealing to the masses.

When she says to me, "the sun is setting," I already know. I close one eye, aim and shoot. Its yellow, dead body loosens its grip on the sky and starts to drop.

"Probably," she says, "no one else is even watching."

I really, truly know what she means, but making words out of a feeling is impossible.

"What... the hell... are people doing?" I ask finally.

The people below us are moving from ride to ride like obnoxious trick-or-treaters. Getting what they want and moving on brainlessly. It's hard to look at something as beautiful as a sunset and not think about all the idiots missing out.

"I couldn't say. Digging their own graves, perhaps? Or throwing up? Or taking pictures in the photobooth?"

"There's a photobooth here?"

"Yeah."

My weak spot, but I won't say anything.

"That's people," I say.

And we go around again, after a stint of being at the top. We're going backwards, and the kids in front of us are sitting apart. A boy and a girl, probably twelve years old, ripe and terrified. Really young couples sadden me, having never been a part of one. Ophelia doesn't notice them. She tells me her thoughts as they come.

"I hate this ride," she says when it comes to a jumpy stop halfway up. "Now all we get to see is the... what the hell is that?"

Her eyes are going bad. I use mine, because they have glasses. "The Rockin' Rollercoaster?"

"That. Now we can't even see anything."

Shadows are upon us. The Rockin' Rollercoaster is giving the Fire Loop a run for its money. It's playing "Hound Dog." Appealing to another mass. She looks so isolated there on the other side of the carriage. I'd like to go win her something, just to make her smile.

I use the excuse of wiping an eyelash from her cheek.

"Eyelash," I say.

"Thanks."

There is no eyelash.

A bored couple get out of their carriage on the platform. Three small children take their place, squirming beneath the metal bar.

The ride moves up again and secures us back at the top. But the sun is murdered and gone, washed out in the river. The show is over. No nice colors anymore, or things to comment on. The lights below get brighter to compensate. Ophelia's breathing slows. I try to translate the Morse code of her breath.

"Are you hungry?" I ask.

"No."

"Me either."

There is something terribly disturbing about the happiness of others. On most days, Derek's Funland is our escape. But you can only be so depressed before everything starts to mock you. The excessive, eclectic light bulbs that adorn the rides never stray from their pattern. Chase, blink, repeat. They are lovely, sometimes. But sometimes the world needs to be black and white, or sepia——like those old-time photos they offer. Sometimes the children need to stop laughing.

"You think everyone's gone yet?" she asks. Earlier she told me they'd be going to her house afterwards to have sandwiches and Mudslides and tell (drunken) stories.

"It's about eight now," I say. "But... what if some of them are sleeping over? You could just come to my house."

"Okay." The girl has no emotion left inside of her. "Let's cut my hair and make out."

"Sure."

"I think I'm dying."

"I know. Thank God." We are finally being let off. The worker guy smiles at Ophelia, his teeth like gravel.

"I hate carnies," she says as we walk away. "They all wanna rape me."

"Take it as a compliment. That's how beautiful you are."

She doesn't smile. "Or that's how ugly I am. As ugly as they are."

She is heading for home, down the main pathway, through the heart of the theme park.

Game booths beckon to us with loud voices and segregated stuffed animals. People holler. They never surrender. Throw a ball, hit a target, win a prize. Guess a number, win a prize. Stick a dart in a poster, win it. Bet on a plastic horse and hope it wins the "race." Choose the right rubber duck and go home with a goldfish. Ophelia got one once and named it Mercury. It died in a week, so we never played the game again. The loss was too great.

We want prizes to remember. None of that "Surprise Bag" shit, either. All those contained were temporary tattoos, finger traps and bouncy balls.

"I need to pee," she says, straying from me and walking to the back of the arcade, where the restrooms are.

The arcade is a joke also. The pinball machine used to be worthy, but then they replaced it with Dance Dance!!, a game where "everyone wins" and you're supposed to put your feet on the lit-up footprints as they pulsate. Joyous.

The only thing in the arcade that amuses us anymore is inconspicuously watching people try to grab stuffed animals in the claw and jewelry machines. The best people are the people who can't live with not winning, so they just keep pumping quarters in.

"They just don't learn," she says. "The claw isn't strong enough to actually pick something up. They make them like that."

Off to the side, I notice a jewelry claw machine. It shines like a tomb, with grey fish tank rocks in the bottom and necklaces and bracelets in clear, plastic boxes. All of them are open, presenting their treasures. That's what the machine is called, actually. The Treasure Scoop. Unicorns, treble clefs, puppies, hearts.

I stick my finger in the coin return when no one's looking. There's a quarter. I check my surroundings again, needing to be sure that no one is secretly ridiculing me. Just a lone couple of kids playing air hockey.

I put the quarter in the machine and grab the joystick. The claw follows my movements, maneuvering over a heart necklace. I press the red button. Down it goes, closing its talons over the lid of the box. And then it moves up, the box going with it. For a second, the box looks to be slipping, but the claw reaches the dropping bin first. A clatter signifies my win.

"Uh... okay," I mutter, retrieving it a bit sheepishly. It is a gold heart within a heart within a heart. I snap it shut, and it immediately breaks apart where the two plastic parts connect. I shove it in my pocket.

Ophelia joins me soon after. We've passed the game portion, so we enter the rides section.

We pass the Fire Loop—a circle of seats that hold you in tightly with orange, padded braces that come down over your head. It's better to take off your shoes, because they feel heavy when the ride pulls you up in the air. It spins you and jolts you around and who knows what else. Ophelia and I are avid fans of the Fire Loop. The first time we went on it, she looked at me afterwards with wide, olive, eyeliner-rimmed eyes and said, "That was better than an orgasm."

I told her that offended me.

She said, "Don't worry, the orgasms you give me are a very close second."

On other days, we would've delighted in an array of rides: the Tilt-a-Whirl, the Blender, the Octopus/Spider, perhaps even the Cave of Spooks. Once we bet 10 bucks on who would throw up first when we rode the Octopus/Spider continually. We chose that ride because it would be easier to just lean out the side and let it all go. I lost, but I didn't hit anyone, so she upped my fine by 5 bucks.

I have all these stories, but they're useless now.

"Let's get out of here, okay?" I take her hand protectively in mine.

We walk faster through the crowd. Hot dogs wrapped in paper are stuffed in people's hands, dried up cotton candy residue on the corners of their mouths. Everyone, now, belongs to a family. All the mothers worship kitchenware parties, all the fathers fix cars with ease, all the children will later be voted 'Most Likely to Become President.' Even those who appear alone, even the couples, fit. They will find soulmates later, later they will marry and keep up the tradition.

This is why I feel wrong. Never before has Derek's Funland turned on me, but now I know that it has.

Eventually we reach a chain-link fence, and she wordlessly puts her feet on my upturned palms and climbs over. There is no need to pay with our system. All we have to do is go to the park on bracelet-free days. Then we can spend my allowance (she doesn't get any) on other things, like salted pretzels for her and nachos for me. It seems Derek's has junk food of a higher quality than anywhere else. Or, more likely, our tastes are fucked.

I forget to take her hand again, and we walk down the street with me on the pavement and her on the sidewalk, next to each other. The streetlights make orbs of orange on the ground.

"I look like I'm being abducted," she says, standing in a circle of light.

"True."

But no conversation comes of it. I think it's too much work for both of us.

We keep walking. She's searching the ground intently as she walks, dragging her feet a little. I'm not surprised when she stops to pick a cigarette butt from the edge of someone's yard.

"Oph."

"Give it up." She sits on the curb.

I sit beside her, on the side I predict the wind isn't blowing towards. She wipes the cigarette off with her shirt and puts it in her mouth. Her lighter is dark purple, almost black. She flicks it on and holds the end of the cigarette in the flame, nearly singeing her nose, sucking on it just enough to get it going. I know her routine so well that I could close my eyes and see it happening, but I don't because I like the real thing too much.

I admire her pale lips, self-pierced ears, uneven dirty hair. She pulls at the cigarette with her lips, puffing it deeply and repeatedly, milking it of all its smoke. It's one of the only times I find her sexy. The way it's like she's making love to the smoke, the way she makes it last as long as possible.

She flicks it to the ground and hisses the smoke through her clenched teeth. It streams forward and floats off.

She stands up, puts it out with her toe, and opens her eyes expectantly. She's in it for the slight high.

"Whoa," she mumbles, looking around. "What the fuck... was that?"

She stumbles into the street, disoriented. Seeing headlights approaching, I grab her arm roughly and pull her back to me, on the sidewalk. She falls into me like a corpse as the car drives by.

"Jesus," she murmurs, then coughs into my shoulder.

I kiss her hair.

"Let it pass," I say softly, holding all of her weight.

After a time, she pulls away. "Thanks," she says.

"I told you not to."

"I know, but that's a risk I'm willing to take." We begin walking again. "It feels good now."

"Lightheaded?"

"Yeah."

I let her have her high as we walk to my house.

----

My house is always vacant, but the TV's always on. Comedy sketches on low volume all the time. I turn it off again, knowing it will find its way back on soon. Later, I'll clean up the plates in the living room caked with refried beans and bits of tortilla.

I help her onto my bed even though she needs no help, and I turn on my fan. It oscillates, sweeping slowly to satisfy us.

"Let me make you an egg or something," I say.

"Which kind?"

"Over-medium, of course."

"Okay. Thanks." She looks at my bedspread, brown ducks darting across the horizon, over cattails.

In the kitchen, I go through the usual motions. Butter the pan. Crack the egg. Wait for it to cook. Turn it over meticulously. When it's just the right shade of brown, I slip it onto a turquoise plate with my spatula. I also grab the scissors from a drawer.

I bring her the egg. She's sitting at my computer, with my porn folder open.

"Thanks," she says. "Good job. Let's watch something."

"Sure," I say. "Or we could cut your hair."

"Oh, that. We'll do that after."

The only type of porn we can ever agree on is gay men, and it's the only kind I have. So she picks one. It happens to be a threesome of camouflaged men in a tent. Some sort of army porn. Not the best thing ever, but I get a hard-on eventually nonetheless. She watches it while eating her egg.

When she's done eating, she lies down on my bed. "Will you?" she asks.

"Sure."

She takes off her jeans and yellow-and-white striped underwear. I obey her unspoken commands, between her legs. I can pretty much ignore her taste by now. She is mostly quiet, except for heavy breathing and random gasps. The video on my computer ends, and after that my erection goes away pretty quickly. But it doesn't matter. She gets to her orgasm. I always know because she curls her toes and makes this weird sound like a dog when its tail is stepped on.

I pull away.

"Thanks," she breathes.

"No problem."

She pulls her stupid-looking underwear on and sits up, opening the window to let some air in. I sit up.

"Oph," I warn, putting my hand on her arm. I notice there's a bruise on it, where I grabbed it earlier to pull her out of the street. "Close the window."

"The lights are still on in my house," she says with annoyance. "I'm sure they're all drunk now."

It's 10:55. Much too late for a wake to still be going on. Turning away, her eyes have glazed over with tears.

"Why do I feel bad?" Ophelia asks. "It's not like the funeral would've been any different from Derek's."

She eyes her palms, and I say nothing. I want to apologize for the bruise, but it'd be out of place. I can feel the plastic of the necklace case digging into my leg. I decide to endure it.

"God damnit," she says, dabbing at her eyes. I agree entirely.