A Noose That Glitters

The yellow dust was everywhere. It coated the windshield of Benji's beaten Honda, settling into the cracks of the wiper blades, turning the glass into a hazy filter. Spring had arrived in the valley not with warmth, but with a suffocating cloud of pollen. The air felt thick. Benji rubbed his jaw. The joint clicked loudly in the quiet car. His right foot tapped a frantic, erratic rhythm against the floor mat.

He didn't remember parking. He didn't remember turning off the ignition. The engine was cold. He looked down at his hands. His knuckles were white, gripping a steering wheel that was sticky with old coffee and nervous sweat. He let go. His fingers cramped.

Through the pollen-stained windshield, a neon sign flickered.

It was midday. The spring sun was bright and harsh, bleaching the sky into a pale, watery blue. Neon had no business being on, let alone visible, but the pink and green tubes cut through the daylight like a migraine.

AMUSEMENTS.

The sign hung over a rusted chain-link fence. Beyond it, a dirt field stretched out, completely taken over by a carnival.

Benji blinked. The skin around his eyes felt tight. He rubbed his face, his palm coming away slightly gritty. He wasn't supposed to be here. He was supposed to be at the grocery store. Clara had texted him two hours ago. Did you pick up the pasta? He hadn't. He had driven past the store. He had driven past his exit. He had just kept driving until the road ran out and the yellow dust took over.

He opened the car door. The hinge screamed. He stepped out into the dirt. The ground was soft, muddy from a recent spring storm, and it immediately sucked at the soles of his worn sneakers.

He walked toward the entrance. There was no ticket booth. No turnstile. Just a gap in the fence where the chain-link had been peeled back like the lid of a tin can.

The carnival smelled wrong. It didn't smell like funnel cake and cheap thrills. It smelled like wet wool, stale beer, and the metallic tang of an old radiator bleeding out in a closed room.

Benji's stomach turned over. Acid bubbled in the back of his throat. He swallowed hard, tasting bile. He reached into the right pocket of his jacket. His fingers brushed against a small, square box wrapped in cheap velvet. It felt like a lead weight. It felt radioactive. It was burning a hole through the lining of his coat.

He stepped through the gap in the fence.

The midway was narrow. Too narrow. The game booths leaned inward, the striped canvas awnings sagging under the weight of unseen water. The path ahead was crooked.

He walked. His breathing grew shallow. He couldn't get a full lungful of air. The pollen was thick here, hanging in the air like a mist.

He passed a game. A row of glass bottles lined up on a shelf. The sign above read: KNOCK 'EM DOWN! But the bottles weren't old milk jugs. They were baby bottles. Plastic, faded, lined up in a row. The heavy baseballs resting on the counter were painted with the logos of mortgage companies.

Benji's chest tightened. He kept walking.

Omniscience allows for the understanding of things unseen. It allows for the knowledge that three miles away, in a cramped, overpriced apartment, Clara was sitting on a couch with a broken spring, staring at her phone. The screen was cracked in the top left corner. She was biting her thumbnail. She was wondering if he was dead in a ditch, or if he was just being Benji. She loved him, but love is often just a very long, very tiring exercise in waiting.

Benji didn't know that. He only knew his jaw ached.

He passed another booth. RING TOSS.

The rings weren't plastic hoops. They were gold bands. Tiny, heavy, glittering aggressively under the harsh, bare bulbs of the booth. The pegs they were supposed to land on were shaped like little wooden people. Little wooden houses. Little wooden dogs.

"Win a life," a voice muttered from the shadows of the booth.

Benji didn't stop. He walked faster. The mud splashed against his ankles.

The path was shrinking. He was sure of it. When he had stepped through the fence, there had been ten feet of clearance between the booths. Now, there was barely five. The canvas awnings brushed against his shoulders. The fabric was damp and smelled of mildew.

He needed to leave. He pulled his phone from his back pocket. The screen was dead. Black glass. He tapped it. Nothing.

"Shit," he muttered. His voice sounded thin, absorbed immediately by the heavy air.

He turned around.

The path behind him was gone. The game booths had shifted, closing rank. A solid wall of striped canvas and rusted metal blocked his way back to the fence.

Panic, cold and sharp, spiked in his gut. His heart hammered against his ribs. He turned back. The only way was forward, deeper into the noise.

The music started.

It wasn't a calliope. It was a wedding march, played on an organ that was missing half its keys. The chords were dissonant, clashing violently against each other. It sounded like a threat.

He pushed forward. The midway opened up slightly, spilling into a circular clearing. At the center stood the main attraction.

It was a roller coaster. But it was small. Pathetic. The track was a single, tight circle, maybe twenty feet in diameter. It looked like a kiddie ride, the kind you find outside a dying strip mall. The metal was painted a faded, chipping red. Rust bled from the joints.

The single car sat on the track. It was shaped like a swan, but the swan's neck was broken, hanging limply to the side.

Standing next to the car was a man.

Benji stopped. His breath hitched.

The man wore a dirty blue jumpsuit. The name patch on his chest had been violently scratched out with a black marker. He was tall, thin, and his skin looked like old parchment—dry, brittle, lacking any underlying moisture.

But that wasn't what made Benji's stomach drop.

The man had no eyes.

Where his eyes should have been, there was just smooth skin. No scars, no hollow sockets. Just a continuous, uninterrupted expanse of dry, yellowish skin stretching from his forehead to his cheekbones.

"Ticket," the carny said. His voice was entirely normal. It sounded like a guy asking for change at a gas station.

Benji took a step back. His heel hit a piece of scrap metal. "I don't have a ticket. I'm just looking for the exit."

The eyeless carny tilted his head. He didn't have eyes, but he was looking right at Benji. "You're in the park. You ride."

"I'm not riding that," Benji said. His voice shook. He hated that it shook.

"Get in."

"Listen to me, man. I don't want to be here. I made a wrong turn. I just need to get back to my car."

The carny stepped forward. He moved quickly, silently. He grabbed Benji's arm. His grip was impossible. It felt like a vise made of cold steel.

Benji tried to jerk away. "Hey! Get off!"

"You bought the ring," the carny said flatly. "You ride."

Benji froze. The velvet box in his pocket suddenly felt burning hot. "How do you know about that?"

The carny shoved him. Benji stumbled, falling backward into the swan car. The plastic seat was hard and cracked. Before Benji could scramble out, the carny slammed the metal safety bar down.

It hit Benji's chest with a sickening thud.

Benji gasped, all the air rushing out of his lungs. The bar was too tight. It pinned him to the seat. He grabbed the metal, trying to shove it up. It wouldn't budge.

"Hey!" Benji yelled, panic rising in his throat. "Release this! It's crushing me!"

The carny leaned over the car. His smooth, eyeless face was inches from Benji's. He smelled like ozone and burnt sugar.

"The ring is a noose that glitters, my guy," the carny whispered.

He hit a large green button on the control console.

The machinery groaned. A violent, grinding noise erupted from beneath the swan car. The car lurched forward.

Benji's head snapped back against the hard plastic. The car began to move along the circular track.

It wasn't fast. It was excruciatingly slow. The metal wheels screamed against the rusted track.

Around. And around.

Benji strained against the bar. His ribs ached. Every breath was a shallow, painful gasp. He pulled his legs up, trying to slide out from underneath, but there was no room. The car was built for a child. He was trapped.

Around. And around.

The scenery didn't change. The dirt. The sagging tents. The eyeless carny standing by the console, his head slowly tracking Benji's movement.

Memory is an aggressive invader when the body is trapped. As the car ground through its second rotation, Benji's mind forcefully pulled him out of the seat and dropped him into the pawn shop.

It was three weeks ago. Raining. He had walked into 'Cash 4 Gold' because the jewelry stores at the mall terrified him. The pawn shop smelled like stale cigarettes and desperation. The man behind the counter had missing teeth and a bad cough.

Benji had asked to see the rings. He didn't know anything about cut or clarity. He just knew he only had eight hundred dollars to his name.

He picked a small, sad-looking diamond set in a thin gold band.

"She'll love it," the pawn broker had lied, coughing into a tissue.

Benji had bought it. He had walked out into the rain, the velvet box in his pocket, and he had thrown up in a storm drain.

He didn't want to buy the ring. He didn't want to propose. He didn't want the apartment, or the broken couch, or the inevitable conversations about health insurance and dual incomes. He was twenty-two. He was a senior in college. He was supposed to be drinking cheap beer on a Tuesday and worrying about final exams, not anchoring himself to the earth.

But Clara wanted it. Clara was twenty-four. Clara worked at a bank. Clara had a five-year plan. And Benji? Benji was just swept up in her current, too afraid to swim to shore, too weak to paddle.

The roller coaster lurched, snapping Benji back to the present.

The ride was speeding up.

The centrifugal force pushed him against the side of the swan car. The bar pressed harder into his ribs. He felt a sharp, stabbing pain on his left side.

"Stop!" Benji screamed. The wind whipped his voice away.

The track was shrinking.

It wasn't an optical illusion. The circle was getting smaller. The car was taking less time to complete a rotation.

Thirty seconds. Twenty seconds. Ten seconds.

He was spinning. The world blurred into a smear of grey dirt and faded red paint. The discordant wedding march blared from unseen speakers, growing louder, faster, matching the frantic speed of the coaster.

He was going to be crushed. The track was tightening like a snare.

He saw Clara's face. Not a happy memory. The memory from last Tuesday.

She was standing in the kitchen, holding a dripping colander of pasta. "My sister is pregnant," she had said. Her voice was flat.

Benji had been sitting at the small laminate table, picking at a loose piece of glue. "That's cool," he had muttered.

"Is it?" Clara had asked, turning to look at him. Her eyes were tired. Dark circles mirrored the exhaustion in her posture. "Because they have a house. And a yard. And she's twenty-five."

"We're doing fine," Benji had lied.

"We have eighty dollars in checking, Benji. You graduate in a month and you haven't applied for a single job."

"I'm looking!" he had yelled, the defensiveness rising instantly, a shield for his incompetence.

"Looking isn't doing," she had said quietly, dumping the pasta into a bowl.

He hated her in that moment. He hated her for being right. He hated her for making him feel small.

The swan car jerked violently. The track was so small now that the car was practically vibrating in place.

The safety bar dug into his chest. He couldn't breathe. Black spots danced at the edge of his vision.

The ring is a noose.

He wasn't going to die on this ride. He wasn't going to let this decaying, rusted trap crush him.

Adrenaline, raw and primal, flooded his system. He didn't think about the pain. He didn't think about his bruised ribs.

He grabbed the metal bar with both hands. He planted his feet against the floorboard. He screamed.

It wasn't a heroic scream. It was ugly. It was the sound of an animal caught in a trap, tearing its own leg off to escape.

"I CAN NOT DO THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW!"

He shoved upward. The muscles in his back screamed. His shoulders popped.

The locking mechanism groaned.

He shoved harder, his vision going completely red.

SNAP.

The metal latch sheared off. The bar flew up, hitting him squarely in the jaw.

Benji didn't care. He threw his weight to the side, tumbling out of the speeding swan car.

He hit the dirt hard. The ground was unforgiving. He rolled, scraping his face against the mud and gravel, coming to a stop near the edge of the tent.

He gasped for air. It burned his lungs. He tasted dirt and blood.

He looked up.

The carny was gone. The console was sparking.

The swan car was spinning so fast it was a red blur. And then, the center could not hold.

The metal track buckled. The swan car shot off the rails, tearing through the support poles of the massive canvas tent overhead.

The poles snapped like toothpicks.

The tent began to collapse.

Thousands of pounds of wet, heavy canvas rushed down toward him.

Benji scrambled to his feet. His left leg gave out, his knee throbbing with dull, heavy pain. He limped backward, desperately looking for an exit.

There was a doorway behind him. Not a tent flap, but a wooden doorframe standing freely in the dirt. Inside the frame was a mirror.

It was a funhouse mirror. The glass was warped, rippling like water.

The canvas crashed down around him, plunging the carnival into darkness. The heavy fabric slapped against the dirt, suffocating everything.

Benji threw himself backward, straight into the mirror.

He expected to hit solid glass. He expected the glass to shatter, to cut him to ribbons.

Instead, there was no resistance.

He fell through.

The transition was violently absolute. One moment he was surrounded by the smell of mildew and dirt, the next, there was nothing.

No air. No light. No gravity.

He was falling through a void. It was pitch black. He flailed his arms, trying to grab onto something, but his hands only met empty space.

And then, the sound began.

Bells.

Wedding bells. But they weren't ringing in celebration. They were massive, heavy iron bells, and they were swinging out of rhythm.

CLANG.

DONG.

CRASH.

The noise was deafening. It vibrated in his teeth. It rattled his skull. It was the sound of a thousand alarms going off at once, a cacophony of metal on metal.

He clapped his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Stop!" he screamed into the darkness.

The bells rang louder. They were falling with him. He could feel the air displacement as massive, invisible iron bells swung past his head.

He was falling faster. The air turned freezing cold.

The velvet box was still in his pocket. It felt incredibly heavy now. It was pulling him down. He reached into his jacket. He grabbed the box.

He wanted to throw it away. He wanted to toss it into the void.

But his fingers wouldn't let go. His fist remained tightly clenched around the cheap velvet.

The ringing reached an unbearable pitch. A physical pressure squeezed his head.

He opened his mouth to scream again, and hit the bottom.

***

Benji gasped, his eyes snapping open.

He was staring at a ceiling. Water stains mapped the cheap plaster like continents on a sad, forgotten globe.

He was in his bed.

He bolted upright. The movement made his head spin. He grabbed his chest. His heart was beating so fast it felt like a bird trapped under his ribs.

He was sweating profusely. His grey t-shirt was plastered to his skin, heavy and cold. The bedsheets were tangled around his legs, soaked in sweat.

He looked around frantically.

The room was small. A particle-board dresser. A desk covered in unread textbooks and empty energy drink cans. A window with broken blinds.

His apartment. His crappy, off-campus apartment.

He looked at his hands. They were clean. No dirt. No blood.

He touched his jaw. It didn't hurt. He pressed his ribs. No bruises.

It was a dream.

He let out a long, shaky breath. He ran his trembling hands through his damp hair. "Just a dream," he whispered to the empty room. "Just a completely messed up dream."

He swung his legs over the side of the bed. The linoleum floor was cold against his bare feet.

He reached for his jacket, which was slung over the back of a desk chair.

He patted the right pocket.

His stomach dropped out.

The velvet box was there.

He pulled it out. It was real. It was physical. It wasn't a nightmare. The eight hundred dollars was gone. The obligation was here.

He set the box on the nightstand. It sat there, a tiny blue cube, dominating the room. It felt like a bomb.

He looked at the digital clock on his desk.

5:14 AM.

Clara would be waking up soon. She worked the early shift at the bank. She would wake up, make terrible coffee, and text him. She would ask about the pasta. She would ask what they were doing tonight. She would ask, implicitly, with every look and every sigh, what they were doing with the rest of their lives.

Benji stared at the ring box.

He couldn't do it.

He couldn't ride the coaster. He couldn't go in tiny, shrinking circles until he was crushed. He couldn't be the guy with the mortgage and the yard and the dead eyes. He wasn't ready. He was barely a person yet. He was just a collection of anxieties wearing a cheap t-shirt.

He didn't make a conscious decision. His body simply took over.

He grabbed the canvas duffel bag from the closet.

He didn't fold anything. He pulled open the dresser drawers and started grabbing handfuls of clothing. T-shirts. Underwear. Socks. He shoved them into the bag.

He walked into the tiny bathroom. He grabbed his toothbrush and his deodorant. Threw them in.

He was moving fast. Frantically. The tapping in his foot had moved to his hands. He was shaking.

He zipped the bag. The zipper caught on a stray sleeve. He yanked it violently, tearing the fabric, and forced the zipper closed.

He put on his jeans. He grabbed his sneakers. The same sneakers from the dream. He shoved his feet into them without tying the laces.

He picked up his phone. Dead.

Good.

He grabbed his car keys from the desk.

He stopped at the door. He looked back at the room.

The velvet box sat on the nightstand.

He should leave a note. He should text her. He should face her and tell her he was a coward. He owed her that much. Three years. He owed her three years of an explanation.

He took a step toward the nightstand.

The ring is a noose.

He stopped. He backed away.

He couldn't. If he saw her, if he heard her voice, the guilt would anchor him. He would stay. He would put the ring on her finger, and he would die a slow, quiet death inside.

He turned the doorknob.

He stepped out into the hallway. The air in the corridor smelled like stale weed and cheap carpet cleaner.

He walked down the stairs, his duffel bag hitting his thigh with every step.

He pushed the heavy glass door of the apartment building open.

The spring dawn was breaking. The sky was a bruised, pale purple. The air was crisp, but the yellow dust still coated the hoods of the parked cars.

Benji walked toward his Honda.

He didn't know where he was going. He just knew he was running.

He unlocked the car. He threw the bag onto the passenger seat.

He looked back at the apartment building. The windows were dark. The world was quiet.

He was free.

But as he stood there, keys in hand, the silence of the morning felt heavy. It didn't feel like liberation. It felt like standing at the edge of a very steep cliff, realizing you've already taken the step, and you're just waiting to hit the ground.

The door clicked shut behind him, the sound violently final in the quiet spring dawn.