Memories of Sideshow Alley

You could hear the sounds of sideshow alley blaring out from a mile away. The hollow, metallic rasp of music and glow of coloured lights rose in a huge bubble above the beach. Adolescent dreams would flutter the warm summer evening like a mindless moth revved up on hope. The clang and clatter of rides, the yells and excited screams sprayed out of a whirling blur of lovely faces wound your inflamed passions ever tighter. The telepathic signals you sent out to catch an eye scarcely scored a glance. Then poised on a chance, your brain would freeze and hang on your tongue like a lead balloon leaving you gasping for air, a hundred words away from ruby lips tired of waiting to blow you up. Alone, at the end of the jetty, all you could do was to let the wind billow out a swollen bag of unspoken words and send them off winged with a foolish hope. And then, the long walk back, the sound of sideshows subsiding into the sad lament of breaking waves, the smell of urine soaked sand wafting up from below the boardwalk, the weighted solitude of the bus ride home.