A Dream Once Dreamt

The Dream

        Peering through a dense, icy fog, the outline of an old island is visible. After navigating the murky mass, the unmistakable contour of the wrought-iron main gate is perceptible. Weathered over time by the recurring acidic rain that claimed dominance over the area, the gate, designed for admitting thousands of people, had been retired for years. With hinges melded to the gate itself, it was no longer a grand entryway than a pitiful barrier. Through the corroding metal bars, the worn outlines of various attractions now lay in a hopeless ruin.

        At one time, thousands of people, cheering, talking, and boisterous, walked through the once-gleaming threshold. Now, the moss and other plants were the only inhabitants of the portal, and its’ interior. The gate had once served as an entrance to a proud, bustling amusement park, complete with a roller coaster and circus quarter. Now, the very air that had been breathed by guests wept out of weariness from the silence, and its tears added moisture to the fog. This fog then crawled from the corroded entry gate to the first tourist trap: the circus quarter. Navigating the giant, color-bleached and peeling circus tents via a snake-like pathway that slithered across the ground, the fog was met with another despairing sight. The snake’s pathway opened to a medium-sized amphitheater, where the smell of anxious hope riddled the air. The scent emanated from a small box, forgotten backstage, containing unopened magic tricks. It had been waiting seemingly forever for its’ long departed owner to use it. It seemed as if the fog chuckled, a dark chuckle that dampened the rotting wooden benches of the amphitheater, and departed, not wanting to bathe in the box’s hopeless fantasy. From that sorrowful spot, the fog cut through the rest of the despairing and longing tents, with gaping jaws of darkness that hoped to swallow visitors once again. From there, the fog paused, catching an earful of moaning from the brush. A sorrowful, depressing moan, it ended in sharp screeching sound that scared a few of the jet-black birds from their precarious perches in the trees. Intrigued, the icy trespasser followed the sound.

        Emerging from the trees, the soupy thickness spotted the withering frame of a wooden roller coaster in the near distance. In its prime, the attraction had taunted the population below, boasting of its’ impressive drop and rugged turns. Dwarfing the circus quarter and other attractions, the coaster, gazing out at the rest of the island, had named itself king of its realm, king of the ultimate land. Now, the wrinkled monarch gazed sadly upon its’ ruined kingdom. The coaster itself was in terrible condition, missing patches of track due to collapsed supports. The rusted, steel blood vessels of the wooden skeleton, that had once transported carts around the coasters’ body, were responsible for the mournful, screeching cry. In its’ last attempt to remember itself, the wooden coaster had worn out the rusted bonds that kept one of the carts on the track. As the ancient cart rolled down the screaming rails, the rotting, delicate wooden supports gave up, bringing the whole coaster down in a tremendous crash. Ripping faded posters titled, “Come ride the coaster!” And, “Two tickets for the price of fun!” The entire structure was now in indiscernible ruin. Over time, growth from the disintegrating wooden logs would cover the grave of the king, its’ memory and legacy lost forever.

        Shivering after witnessing such a tragic demise, the fog continued its journey, moving now to the aged food plaza. Gliding delicately over the cracked and overturned cement, the fog came to a standstill in the center, as if to sightsee the sorrowful section. Overpowered by nature’s industry of saplings and spores, the northern part of the circle had been conquered by plants and foliage, which now made the area that held the food court a disaster in comparison to the rest of the forgotten plaza. Its southern counterpart, however, was in a different situation altogether. The designated eating area hadn’t been overrun with brush, but the metal umbrellas and stationary benches had been either upturned or worn away so severely by the acid rain that they were nearly indistinguishable from the other destroyed structures. The fog, getting depressed from the sorry state that the plaza was in, rose up to survey the entirety of the island.

        In an uneven oval, the time-worn island lay in the center of an edgeless roaring sea of dark, acidic water. Indeed, every devastating wave that laps against the overgrown shore wears away a little of the doomed island. Around the edges, a long, iron fence encircles the park, though trees have pushed it out and made it uneven in places. At the center, the coaster’s grave lay in a clearing, a pile of rotten wreckage, a carcass. The ruins of the food plaza lay to the north, and the isles of desolate tents mourned for company to the east. An overgrown wasteland, the dead body of the amusement park is slowly swallowed up by the endless ocean.

        I surfaced from my reminiscing when the waitress asked me again, “Would you like the check, sir?” After thanking her, I stared into the empty chair across from me. I knew where that dream had come from. I had dreamt of that island before, when I was much younger, and experienced what it had been like in its prime. “Amazing,” I muttered under my breath, “What happens to dreams once they are finished.”