She didn’t remember how she’d gotten there. Her companion led her by the hand to the yellow teacup. Other people were climbing into the seventeen other teacups. She had last been on this ride years before with her husband and her young children. She sat down. Her companion sat down opposite her and snapped shut the little door in the side of the cup. He wasn’t her husband but a dark stranger who turned his head away every time she tried to look into his face. They waited for all the others to be seated in their teacups and the little doors to be slammed shut.
Suddenly the pale yellow teacup and all the others started to move in large circles over the surface. Then the dark stranger grabbed the solid wheel in the center of the teacup and began to turn it faster and faster. The teacup rotated on its axis, spinning slowly at first, then more and more quickly until she could see only blurs where the other teacups were. The dark stranger started to laugh as he turned his face toward her. She could see only darkness in his face, with one large, dark closed eyelid, no visible nose, no visible mouth. Yet he laughed and laughed maniacally. She was on the point of screaming.
“Honey, honey! Wake up – you’re having a bad dream!”
It was her husband standing before her. She jumped up from the sofa where she’d fallen asleep. She put her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. But far off she heard the faint sound of the dark stranger still laughing.
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(c) Gregory V Driscoll 2012
O'Driscoll's Take on the World 