Subject: [OTL]: [Sandman, G] Magic Land
Date: 1 Sep 2001 14:32:09 MDT
From: Joan Milligan <leora-h@usa.net>

Ouch, it's been a while since I posted one of those stories, hasn't it?

But another one is here! Rejoice with me! I just hope I didn't lose my
touch...

Anyway... disclaimer: This writer does not own Death of the Endless, and i
grateful for the guy who does for having made it clear he doesn't mind she's
borrowing her for a while. This writer is not making money of this story and
truly owes it all to Vertigo and World's Best Dreamer Neil Gaiman.

Luba may archive this story if interested. All others I must ask to ask
first.

This story is for Gills.

Magic Land

She walks through the amusement park, her hair dark, mingling with the
darkness, the shadows playing tag with her jeans and sweatshirt, slender white
arms reaching to grab the velvety night and pet its dragon's head. I watch her
step lightly through the park, her eyes on the attractions, and she laughs,
admiring this temple of forgetting.

She walks and she climbs the Merry-go-round and it starts moving, with no
electricity and no supervision, like a scene from a Rod Sterling movie.
Laughing there on the spinning circle of plastic ponies, white as a ghost and
giggling like a little girl, the music spilling all around her, eloquent and
warm.

I watch her looking up as she studies the rollercoaster, I wonder if she'll
make it go, or if she'll scream as it dives down a dozen stories or goes a
giant loop, her hair flowing backwards, and God, how she's laughing, how she's
happy, how she can.

And I know that she won't, lonely little thing, all alone in the empty
amusement park, like in a black and white TV show. She's thinking, I know,
of
the boy who died there today, heart giving out between the hollers and wind.
Maybe she thinking on how his hands felt, or his weight, pulling at her
wings.

She shoots a rubber duck and wins a teddy bear, tries to reach and take it but
isn't tall enough. She's so tiny, looks so frail, just wants her teddy bear
and a ride on the coaster, just like all the other girls, she wants to escape.

I follow her quietly and the turned off colorful lights seem to call, seem to
want her to come to them. The statues and costumes seem to want her, invite
her and welcome her in, offer her a sugar cone and ice cream and a balloon and
take her to their magic land. When the people are gone and the show is over,
she's left behind to pick up the pieces, of lives and worlds and songs and
empty amusement parks.

I walk after her and ghosts seem to rise, of plastic and wood and fabric, and
people who came and went and gone home, and a while later died and knew her,
and a bit of forgetting went into her, just enough to always leave her longing
for more.

She drives the ramming cars, going vroom vroom and swinging the wheel hard.
Once a woman fell off at the wrong place there and was electrocuted, and she
came and was told of the happiest last experience there ever was. She looks
over the stables, absently touching a door. An old rider lived here all his
life, tending one horse after another, until dying happy in his bed, full of
memories clouded by ten thousand hours on the stage.

Amusement parks have spirits - like TV shows, concerts, carnivals and dreams.
Spirits, like puddles, gathered off a thousand raindrops of souls, of people
who came and had happy moments of forgetting, of ignorance and innocence in
blinking lights and electronic music. Who for an hour had perfect lives and
who sometimes had perfect deaths, and then she comes, and the attractions are
closed.

She loves amusement parks, visits them every chance she gets, in melancholy
nights and empty memories. That's how I came to know of her. I've had no
personal experience - I got lucky, I met her in her amusement park mode.

The fences are dark, sleeping, the mirror maze reflecting itself lazily away
into infinity. One last popcorn machine wasting electricity in silence. She
walks away into the embracing night, drinking a glass of raspberry slush.
Places to go, people to meet. Amusement parks are fleeting, brief and
intangible, like life, they just get appreciated more.

I don't think I'll publish the pictures I've taken of her tonight after all.
They're not really worth the front page. I mean, how unusual can a girl who
needs her visit to the amusement park be?

End

~~~~~~~~~~~~

After this painful dry period, feedback of any kind will be highly
appreciated.

... Also...

I'd like to make a small request of those people who read and enjoyed my
Sandman fics to date and who also happen to be able to draw well. These
stories, these particular ones, had a considerable impact on me, and perhaps
I just need to see something of them through other people's eyes, or... or maybe
I'm not making sense, but I still feel I should ask this:
If you've read my stories, if you liked them, if you have a moment to spare,
please make this small effort of picking up a pencil and drawing a scene or
an image taken from one of them, and send it to me. It'll be entirely your
picture, meaning I won't stake a claim on it or anything. I don't mind if
it'll be just a little sketch. I honestly don't know how I can repay you, but
if I can in any way, tell me and I will. And if I can't... perhaps you would
consider it a friendly exchange of 'lines'? ;)

This is just a request that can be ignored. I won't mind. But... please?

Thanks in advance.

Here's to the Great Debate!

Joan Milligan