The Real Magic Kingdom

for bridget

For the happiest place on Earth, there sure were a lot of grumpy parents and crying kids. Victor was hoping that he wasn’t wasting his time in this line. He had been turned away from Space Mountain for being too tall. TOO TALL! How many people can say that they’re too tall to ride a roller coaster? The man in front of him was arguing with his pre-teen daughter about whether it was worth leaving the line to get chicken strips. When the man saw Victor, he turned ghost white and agreed with his daughter that now, after spending 43 minutes in line, was the appropriate time to go eat overpriced food.

Victor was accustomed to this reaction. When people saw him, they generally reacted with a combination of horror and disgust. It was like they were face to face with an extremely unfortunate burn victim whose features made them inhuman. But Victor was the opposite. He had no features. His defining characteristic was his height and build. A few people on the internet had taken to calling him Slenderman and created lore about him luring children into the woods. Victor wasn’t sure how he had become part of the internet mythology. But he was, and at this point, there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

When he got to the front of the line, the teenager running the Haunted Mansion ride craned his neck to look up at him. He whimpered as he pointed Victor to the last seat on the doom buggy. Haunted Mansion was one of Victor’s favorite rides. He felt at home with the creepier things in life and there was less of a chance that someone would panic around him. The ride made its way through the mansion and people jumped as ghosts appeared. But not Victor. This was his happy place. He wished that people could see his smile. But they couldn’t, because he didn’t have one.

When the ride ended, he left the exit back into the sunny and muggy Florida day. He thought it best to head home before everyone headed for the exits. He still needed to grab one more souvenir before he left. He walked over to a shop selling every Disney character in plushy form. Even the new Marvel superheroes were stuffed and sold. There was a boy, maybe 11, looking into the store window at a realistic-looking Thor’s hammer. He was trying to get his parent’s attention with the hope that they would shell out a month’s pay for it. But his parents were busy arguing about whether it was best to leave now or stay for the fireworks. Victor had found the perfect thing for his collection. He went up and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. With a loud “crack”, they were now standing in the woods. The boy’s confusion had not yet turned into panic.

If he could speak, Victor would say to the boy “I can't wait to show you the real Magic Kingdom.” But he couldn’t. So he wrapped his tentacles around him and carried him into the dank, overgrown castle.

The Old Moss Farm

Lazy days on the Old Moss Farm consisted of sitting on the porch and drinking iced tea. Now the farm didn’t always grow moss. At one point, if you ate a peach or pecan in southeast Texas, it was likely that it came from Old Moss Farm. But these days, the farm was living up to its name. Long tails of Spanish Moss decorated the limbs of the old orchard. The trees seemingly weighed down with age just as much as with the moss. No one harvested the pecans or peaches these days. What did grow was left for the squirrels and birds.

Old Farmer Palmer sat in his chair on the porch, drinking iced tea, looking over his tired, mossy orchard. It wasn’t just the orchard that was tired. John Palmer had spent all 67 of his years on the farm. His father and his father’s father had carefully planted the trees over the years and grew the farm as the market grew. When John was a boy (Johnny at the time) he spent his days climbing the trees of the orchard and chasing chickens around the back of the house.

John had done his best to keep the farm alive. Even when grocery stores were able to import cheaper fruit from Mexico and California year-round, John innovated. He opened the orchard to the public and let people pick their own peaches as the apple orchards do in the Northeast. People around the area came for a few seasons. Then they didn’t. John tried to sell peaches online, but when people could get them cheap at the grocery store, they didn’t really think about where they came from. The biggest blow was when his best friend Ralph passed away. John and Ralph weren’t public about the totality of their relationship, so John wasn’t able to publicly grieve the way that others who lost their lover would. When people spoke of Ralph, he would sit stone-faced and nod along, willing the tears to come later when he was alone.

After Ralph died, John let the tractor rust a little more. He let the paint on the barn fade. And he let the moss grow. Each season, the moss grew longer and there were fewer peaches. The moss slowly took over spaces where new leaves would grow until John sat on the porch each morning, staring at an orchard of moss. If he were younger, he would be out on a ladder fighting back the moss with chemical spray. But John was content. The orchard would die with him.

Summer

For months, Caroline had pined for Summer. The sun’s rays on her cheeks. Birds singing. Crickets chirping. Trees rustling. Today was the day that the almanac said that summer would finally arrive. The Old Farmers Almanac had been predicting the weather for at least a decade and she would stake every ounce of her emotions on the fact that Summer would be here today.

Caroline planned her day around the fact that it would be bright and warm. She would catch a picnic by the train station with her best friend Ingrid. They would watch as travelers from far away got off the train to visit their little town. They may even get to jump in the pond out on Mr. Duke’s land.

Caroline frantically put on a summer dress and packed a picnic. Her mother was clueless as to what was transpiring. As Caroline swung open the front door, a small snowflake melted to her cheek. The cold was like sharpened daggers. The betrayal felt the same.