Soft and Fluffy Doom

Cotton Candy

     It was a hot, humid day. The air felt thick and congealed, pressing disgustingly on the back of your neck. It wasn't, you would think, the sort of day anyone would choose to go to the carnival. but someone was stuck outside, as he was obligated to. He disliked it, but he hoped it wouldn't change, change was bad, this job was much better than the sad changes of humanity. People changed, and they hated it, so why change? he thought. It was simpler to just stay the same, forever.

     Someone would walk up to him, ask for something and give him anywhere from one to ten dollars for the material possessions. The best part about that was, The Man, his boss, got about ten percent of whatever money was made.

     The person sitting at his kiosk thought about The Man quite often, and The Man was, for lack of a better term, strange. Nobody actually knew his name. He was just The Man. The Man always stood too close when he talked to you, and even though he said many things, none of what he said actually meant anything, they were just words spilling from his mouth. You never knew the man was there until you could feel his breath on the back of your neck, and worst of all, the breath always smelled sickly sweet almost as if he'd eaten a bowl of sugar, or was eating a bowl of sugar when he walked up to you.

     Everyone gave him their ten percent and moved on with their life. The Man was just invisible until money was needed, and the only thing anyone knew about him was that he liked cotton candy, so the people who ran that Kiosk only had to give him five percent. That was all people knew about him, and most didn't care about it, but something about it bothered the person obliged to do his work at the kiosk.

     Maybe The Man is annoyed by us, maybe he just sits in a room with cotton candy all the time, alone. Maybe he only likes cotton candy, maybe it was the only thing that could bring The Man-

      The thought was cut off by a passerby staring at the person sitting at his kiosk. The passerby approached holding some cotton candy, and they were far too happy to have it. There was something the kiosk man hated about cotton candy, he assumed it was the distracting sweet aspect of it.

     The passerby walked up to the kiosk, annoyed by the low amount of attention they were receiving. He looked at the merchandise then asked the person sitting behind, "How much for this?"

     "Two dollars," the kiosk owner answered absentmindedly.

     The person was annoyed with this, so he asked another question. "What's your name?"

     "Why do you need to know? We're never going to meet each other again."

     "You would be surprised, you know, it is a small world."

     "Marvin," said the kiosk owner. "Buy something or leave."

     "Fine, I'll take these five things," said the passerby, gesturing his arms out at a pile of items that were on special.

     "Twelve dollars for all of it."

     The passerby, bored of Marvin's unwillingness to speak, left without any of the merchandise, and kept all in his wallet. Marvin was happy about this, but it was too late for him. All his thoughts had scattered across his mind, far off, somewhere, he might be able to get them back.

     Marvin felt something on the back of his neck and turned around. He glanced this way and that, not quite able to put his finger on what it was. He turned back around and surveyed the area in front of him, something had set alarm off inside his mind. Then Marvin smelled the smell, the unmistakable smell. It was sweet, so sweet Marvin was ready to lose his lunch he had just eaten, a lunch of chicken and peas. About as far away from cotton candy one could get.