It's the 31st of October 2024, and James sat alone at a makeshift bar beneath a string of cheap, flickering bulbs.
The scent of sugar, oak and melting candy clung to the air. It was thick enough to coat his throat, his Adam's apple bobbed as he cleared his throat.
Laughter bubbled around him, bright and dissonant, like the dial-tone on a broken radio receiver.
In his vision scattered rings of halo's formed around the bulbs, he squinted, blinked a few times allowing his eyes to adjust. His focus drifted somewhere between the rusted nails holding the stall together and the glass in his hand. The whiskey swirled, the ice melting his reflection.
"Another round of the brown gold, my friend?"
James' daze was broken, he glanced cautiously at the melting ice, shifting slightly and sliding his glass forward.
Thinking was hard. He spent too much time in his head. But right now there was something he didn't want to think about. It did not matter to him now. He couldn't remember.
'I'm already off the deep end might as well drown' James watched the bartender's hands take up the glass and skillfully pour him another shot.
He followed the hands upwards, the bartender did not look old enough to be serving, with a sprouting stubble and eyes too bright for a place like this.
Then again...
He was here.
James mulled at the glass again, his reflection in the ice submerged under the lighter whiskey. His reflection came up warped, high cheekbones, angular jaw, low cut hair. James had the vague outline of someone striking, but not memorable, like a character someone halfway finished designing.
'Is this me?' He squinted, as waves blurred his image even further. Unknowingly his hands were shaking.
He felt a pat on the shoulder along with the casual remark of the young man.
"Hey man, I'll be honest with you. You're paying for my lunch with each cup and you're already down one hundred and twenty, so this one's on the house"
Unfocused, James put the glass to his head and threw it back, slammed the glass down and gripped the knobbled wood to keep himself steady.
Hick!
His head bobbled, like an unsteady wash basin, his mind sloshed along with it. James squeezed his eyes shut a few times and nodded towards the bartender who watched in silence.
'Damn? Should I get some help for this guy? He's out of it.'
"Where are those two?" James muttered to no one in particular. Vague images of two people stuttered into his memories.
He stood, pulled up his underwear that was riding his ass and left one hundred and forty on the bar top. He expressionlessly sauntered away from the stall deeper into the fairgrounds.
The bartender watched James' retreating figure and sighed.
"Mmm. At least he didn't come alone."
He slowly pulled the one hundred and forty under the counter and began cleaning the glass. 'Decent guy'
James was now in the heart of the fair grounds. The name fluttered on the edge of his mind like scrap paper caught in the wind.
' What's the name? Ughh...Ghost-light? No. Hmm.'
'I've got to stop scrolling' He thought. 'My brain feels like I'm running through molasses'.
James frustrated, knocked at the sides of his temple like a box television hoping to get a better signal. The pain once again doused his muddled mind allowing some clarity return as he began to assess his surroundings.
'Good. They can't be far'
The fair wasn't large. A few half-hearted rides, overpriced game booths, and an intensive atmosphere. It smelled better than it looked, like woodsmoke and syrup and something else he couldn't place.
In his intoxication James' unproductive thoughts seemed to take precedence as his mind wandered onto a conspiracy that he saw regarding a certain company, and pumping good smells into the air.
He was one of them. A conspiracist someone who believed in inside jobs and shadow governments. People with no names of birth certificates that ruled the world from the shadows programming humans into cattle, or at least that's what he'd like to believe, just maybe the world was not as mundane as it was in his head, that there was actually something bigger than him happening right under his nose.
"Sigh. F*ck me. At least I didn't spend that much money."
James patted his pockets and feeling the lightness of where one hundred and forty used to be, a lump formed in his throat.
"Shit, do you know how hard I have to work for $140?" James yelled into the ether.
A family of four now looked at him screaming at nothing. The young boy of the family looked at James and pointed.
"Mommy, look at the strange man dancing" The mother of the young boy quickly guided his little head away from James. "Don't look at people like him sweetie, you have to get a good job and a degree so you don't end up like him."
James brows furrowed. He thought about his recently acquired Astronomy degree and looked at the stars. 'Hmm, I can't wait to find something bigger out there'
His expression softened slightly while gazing up at the vast cosmos.
Squelch.
James head tilted. His balance had shifted and unknowingly took a step forward.
Mud caked the base of his white soles.
Hiss...James sucked in a cold breath of air, and closed his eyes.
'Disgusting.'
He wandered off the trail. He watched as everyone shuffled around him. The wind around him seemed to feel just a bit colder. His mind felt just a little bit older in that moment. His breaths stalled before regaining a chilling sharpness as a clear glaze swiped across his countenance.
'Know who you are. Look at you. Drunk...Just like-' *Cough*
Slap!
The world finally seemed to stop moving for a second, if only to watch him lose his mind. He watched as people of all ages stared at him but felt nothing but clarity.
"I remember me...Hmm...I don't like what I see."
James' eyes flashed with malice as he walked towards the nearest defence-less surface and scraped the muck off his soles.
'Better.'
He massaged the sides of his temples and squinted in pain.
Finding his way again he looked at a map of the fairgrounds stapled on a signpost. Everything branched out from the central tent, it was a faded white mass that pulsed slightly in the breeze like lungs accompanied with the sounds of dirt bikes and awe.
As he looked around him autumn had laid its colors out with pride. Amber and russet leaves scattered underfoot as he passed families bundled together against the creeping chill.
Icy breaths formed a visible haze obscuring their expression from his view.
James felt his blood pumping as he flexed his fingers, the heat from his abdomen kept him blanketed into a comfortable warmth along with a hazy fatigue washing over him.
He sank deeper into it, letting his icy breath condense memories into the mist.
He was staring at his feet. His arms were slumped in front of him, spit mixed with blood dripped from his lips. He blinked a few times before his head was lifted.
Three vague figures stood above him.
Their faces were blurred by black scribbles, the only thing that shone through the marks were their expressions. They were smiling. Filled with glee.
"I think you've forgotten who you are. You don't belong here."
Wind blew this memory away but in his mind one name was repeated over and over again.
'Gasper…' The name lingered on his thoughts progressing the memories of the past.
His breath condensed once more. Another memory appeared.
He was still in pain. James looked up and saw a face. His brown hair was matted with sweat and sticky blood flowed endlessly from his brow. Seeing James awake he smiled. His eyes were also brown and held a strange kindness.
He smiled. It was wide like the horizon, as if he was never in pain even as blood ran down his cheeks and his left eye had swelled shut.
He smiled.
"Hey? You alright? They got you good man...When are you going to stand up for yourself? You're bigger than me, Why don't you fight?"
His words along with his innocent smile seemed to spark a strange connection in James' brain.
'Why don't I fight back?' His footsteps seemed to steady as he no longer leaned heavily on Gasper's shoulder.
His youthful brows furrowed as he made a decision.
Vosh…The vision in his breath faded as he wandered under the warmth of a spot light. James scrunched his face as he shielded his eyes.
Time had ticked on even in his memories. He had looped the outer rim of the fair.
The whiskey's warmth had evened out to a hum under his ribs.
He spotted her first.
Hazel was leaning into a darker corner of the grounds her arms knotted around a figure that had to be Gasper. Their faces and twisted and turned in a rhythmic harmony.
Hazel had short blonde hair that was unevenly cut, her eyes were a distinct prismarine blue wide and vast like a tropical ocean. Her pale skin looked even paler under the dim lights.
James sighed. 'This is the bathroom?'
He shimmied his way towards them, cutting through a loose cluster of teens and curious strangers, phones half-raised their camera lights lightly flashing.
Suddenly, a black cat darted in front of him.
James' stride continued but something inside him froze, it felt like the blood in his heart curdled half way through a systolic motion, a ripcord being pulled to a stall.
As James locked eyes with the feline the air grew thick. Time seemed to fold in, the world narrowing into the glossy black of its stare. For a moment, he felt as if he were inside the cat, or maybe the cat was inside him?
His step wobbled as he shifted to regain his balance.
Tick.
The world returned to as it was.
The warmth in his belly, the wind biting at his skin it was all there as it was before but it felt wrong now. Heavy and disturbing.
James almost forgot what he was doing before he once again locked onto the two lovers in a frisky embrace.
Gasper's hand firmly grasped her buttocks and Hazel's arms were sliding in his hair, her finger tips stiffened as their the world melted into nothing.
"Hey"James called.
Gasper and Hazel jolted apart, their flushed faces spinning toward the few onlookers who hadn't yet moved on.
"You said no one would see us here!" she hissed, pounding him again.
Gasper winced, but didn't resist. "I didn't think anyone would be looking in this direction."
James stared at the two argue. 'Hmm. Should I be here? Why did I let them talk me into coming here? I just spent 150$ drinking alone... Is that? Does that say something about me? Am I the problem?'
As his thoughts continued, the argument slowly simmered into a light laughter as Gasper raised his hands in playful surrender. They had always been like this -- fire and foolishness, held together by the thinnest twine of affection.
As they continued James' expression continued to drift into more unsightly territory. 'Hmm, Is this who I am?'
He stared at his flushed pink palms. 'Is this who I am meant to be? Is there nothing bigger than this? How far away do I have to get to stop being me?'
James looked up at the inky sky and the droplets of milk that twinkled high above his world. James turned away, letting their voices fade into background noise.
It was then that something had shifted in the air. A scent earthy and faint, was cutting through the sugar and oak.
James' vision flickered back to reality relating it to something oddly botanical, like the essence of nature condensed into a odd texture on his nostrils.
James cleared his sinus slightly before rubbing the base of his nose.
Their voices behind him softened into a dissonant hum. The crowd had dispersed. Like a smoke trail he locked onto the scent that made his forehead tingle.
His gaze landed on a structure on the far edge of the fairground. The wood seemed to have been coated with some black paint but it curdled under the passage of time revealing the pale rot of the wood underneath.
The sign above the structure sagged on one side, most of the lettering was gone the remnants of the paint dried like raindrops, but by context the word Halloween was deciphered by James rather quickly.
"Halloween?"
As the words drifted from his lips everything seemed to warp around him his vision slowly widened into a fish lens view. Like a spindle the world around him rotated at an increasing speed while his eyes were locked in place. All colors slowly blended into white and like an old TV reel, his vision flickered between a cycle of images.
-- A pumpkin patch filled with jack o'lanterns under a blank night.
-- A field of wheat bobbing their seed heads as if listening to a jolly tune.
-- A pale girl in a bunny mask holding a paper lantern with no flame.
-- A spoked star hung on a string turning slowly in the sky.