{This is a response to Friday Fictioneers, a 100-word photo prompt challenge. This story tries to capture the feel of a nighttime fair, and to explore what it might be like, to be the person people love to follow.
Pegasus, besides being the winged horse of Greek mythology, is also a constellation in the autumn sky, in the US. Although I’m not sure I could find it!
Hope you enjoy, and thank you for the prompt and for stopping by!}
Eugene was master of ceremonies, master of us.
Wherever we were– dorm, circus–Eugene led us around. By the nose.
We followed, tamely. Trusting. It would be fun.
Today: an amusement park.
Up high, the giant wheel cleaved the night sky. Corralling the constellations in neon.
Spiced nuts rode the breeze, to the whinny of swirling swings.
Leave Eugene? Impossible.
He held the reins to our happiness.
And yet, while we spun and spun in the thundering drum, thrust up against the sides, Eugene’s eyes mourned for Pegasus. Trapped.
In the blur, Eugene leapt. And scaled the sky to freedom.
Poor Eugene, seeming so in control, when inside he was crumbling. Sad tale with some lovely language and images, Andrea
Thank you Lynn! Our facades so often hide our inner truth.
An intriguing story. Their willingness to so slavishly follow a leader who in the end deserted them is a worrying thing. Well told.
Thank you Margaret. Sometimes it easier to follow another than your own heart. The consequences are not always apparent, until later.
To always lead can be more of burden than to follow… I wondered a while if they all would jump with him
Good question.
One must do what one must… the burden of leading when you wish to be elsewhere.
Beautifully done.
Thanks Dale.
Really loved the pictures you drew, great imagery, great emotion. Lovely story, really.
Thank you granonine!
i guess it’s the nature of things. you can’t depend on anybody for so long. it’s part of growing up.
True.
A good sense of the atmosphere. Well done.
Thanks Sandra!
Cool imagery and play on words!
Thank you! The horse imagery “followed” naturally after the initial corral image.
By play on words I assume you mean “lead…by the nose,” which means to have absolute control over someone.
I was just looking up the etymology, and indeed, it does come from leading animals around, particularly bulls, who have a ring in their nose. But it does fit the equine theme nicely, when you think of a placid horse following its master.
Dear Andrea,
Very well told and poetic. And my immediate thought at the end is that they’re finally free of Eugene. 😉
Shalom,
Rochelle
Haha! You and your independent spirit! Such slavish lap-doggery is good neither for the leader nor the follower, it seems.
An extremely well told story, sad it had to end with the demise of the leader of the pack…
It did end sadly, unless you believe in magic…I saw him floating up in the sky toward Pegasus like the bridal couple in Marc Chagall’s painting (I just discovered that Pegasus, too, was an image Chagall used more than once.)
Beautifully poetic story. Loved it.
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
Thank you Susan!
There’s some lovely descriptive writing in your story, Andi, and the images you choose add emotional depth. “Corralling the constellations in neon” for example is a very active metaphor, and enlivens your description of the Ferris wheel. And “we spun and spun in the thundering drum,” when juxtaposed with “mourning” is a very powerful image of grief.
This story is a poem, and the best by a long way of those you’ve written for FF.
Thank you so much Penny. I almost named the ride the Thunderdrum, but on looking it up I found it’s the name of a dragon, in “How to train your dragon” movies! Twenty-first century problems! Thanks again for your flattering analysis!
Poetic and beautiful. I loved the coralled stars
Thank you Neil! I tried to play on the idea that a winged horse can’t be fenced in.
They might not be able to leave Eugene, but sounds like Eugene’s left them.
Yes draliman. I think leadership, even just the social kind, can be a burden.