Monday, October 2, 2017

Six Flags Great America Fright Fest

Front of park blared the Halloween synth. A lake of blood in front of the carousel. I was happily overwhelmed. Pumpkins and cobwebs, skeletons and boarded up hot dog stands. We started on The Raging Bull, which near whipped my pigtails out. Next the Giant Drop. After our show Saturday, Dal reminded me about the girl who's feet got cut off on that ride several years ago. I had never been on Goliath before, and I hurt my throat screaming on the first drop. It was such a vertical plummet I was sure the track broke. Puhg didn't want to do V2 but later said it was his favorite. I remember waiting in that yellow line when I was in 8th grade. I felt suddenly hungry, so we went to the cobalt blue "Jack's Snacks" for pretzels. Then Batman, which made us both dizzy. I got a bag of pink cotton candy. The children in line for The Whizzer all looked at me scarfing it with jealousy. It was not as smooth as I remember. I wanted to see the hypnotist. It was such a shimsham "show," but Puhg and I like a middle age woman in a Tweety shirt who took pretending to smell something gross very seriously. Puhg took a car nap. I rode Superman. It broke down twice while I waited, but then I flew right at sunset. The sky was a dazzling purple. I am impatient at theme parks. I was meeting up with Puhg for dinner. It took him twenty minutes to get to me and I could barely stand it. I decided to have a funnel cake fudge sundae. I said, "That hit the spot," when I was done eating and Puhg explained that was very funny. I still don't get why. Something about excess, but I really truly don't understand. I used my (extra $15) fastpass to zoom through five haunted houses alone. I also tried The Joker and didn't particularly enjoy being flipped and hurtled, but did appreciate being so disoriented I couldn't tell where the beauty of the sky and the electric bulbs began. The best part of the haunted house was when two guys lunged at me from two different corners of a room and knocked heads. They cursed and whispered, "You okay bro?" and then attempted to get back into character and scare me. I particularly liked the house that told the story of a little ghost girl who killed all humans who enter her home. I nearly tripped over a bloody mattress when half a carcass reached for my ankles. Closing time was nine. In the last half hour I decided I wanted to see everything from up high again. No one was at Giant Drop. When it opened the wait was two hours. I had to walk through snakes and snakes of line fence and arrived in my own private row. I faced out of the park, the north suburbs of my city. I could make out all the typical words on buildings. Auto-Zone and Burger King. The technician kept us up there for a while. Maybe even thirty seconds or so just waiting to fall. I unintentionally screamed when the bottom gave out. "Do you want to go again?" the girl on the mic asked. I think there were four or five of us. I called out to Puhg waiting on a nearby bench. I tried several name variations, but he couldn't hear me. I wanted to wave from the top. Suddenly I felt so alone. There are things no one else will share with you. There just are. Has it always been this way? Did cavemen experience stuff and have a guttural need to have someone else see? At the top it was silent. I fell the 200 feet.

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