There was the smell of fried dough and cotton candy in the summer air as Mason clutched his mother’s hand, his little fingers sticky from the cotton candy he had been holding. The fair lay before him like a dream realized: spinning rides, laughter, the low hum of the carnival barkers who called out prizes just beyond anyone’s reach. Flashes of color danced across the sky – colorful lights that transformed the twilight into a dream of a night where carousel music set the tempo for a magical night.
This was the night Mason had been waiting for all year. He had been crossing off the days on the calendar. He had been watching the Ferris wheel from a distance, the blinking bulbs winking in the darkness like far-off stars, wondering if this were the year he’d muster up the courage to ride. Every time he’d been to the fair before, he’d been too afraid to ride the Ferris Wheel, too afraid to even get on, to picture what it would be like to just take off just take off like it was nothing, like he was nothing, and fly like everyone else. He’d felt the constriction in this chest, the stifled breath every time he thought about himself high up in the air.
But tonight was different.
Something about the air, charged with laughter and excitement, filled him with possibility. He could feel the electric thrill of the fair vibrating beneath his skin, igniting something inside him that whispered he was ready.
Taking his mother’s hand, they weaved through the crowd. “Which one of them do you want to do first?” “she laughed, with a ring of mirth in her voice.
Mason’s eyes went to the Ferris wheel, and his confidence faltered. He promised himself he would try. He had often lain awake at night and imagined he was in one of those rocking vehicles, travelling, travelling, high up above the earth, farther and farther away and everything down below was growing smaller and smaller. But that was the easy part — the hard part was doing it.
“I’m not sure,” he replied, a little softer than he intended.
His mother sat at his side there, and with such a tender and yet wise look in her eyes.
“Amusement park’s been all you’ve been waiting for this whole summer,” she said quietly. “Are you ready?”
Mason swallowed hard. He wished he could, to show himself that he was an incredibly brave person. But fear rested heavy and familiar on his ribs. He gazed at the ride, which loomed above him, and the war between eagerness and hesitation battled inside his soul.
“I think so,” he whispered.
They stepped forward toward the Ferris wheel that loomed in the distance, Mason’s heart galloping along beside him. The person in charge of the ride, a man with a weather-beaten face and gentle eyes, beckoned for them to board the ride beyond the turnstile to the car. Mason stopped, heart pounding, and his mother squeezed his hand encouragingly.
“You can do this.” she muttered.
Mason took a deep breath and climbed in, feeling the unsteady wobble of the seat as the door latched shut. A whirling and a curious sensation of rising as the ride zoomed upward, carrying him along, upwards. Below, the fair shrank, its lights going warm and easy, the laughter falling off into the quiet of the wind. Up and up went, and far below them the world lay out like a glowing picture, in the colours of the circus.
And then — there at the top — he peered out.
His fear melted into wonder.
And there was the town, those streets he had so often walked, the fair, itself — spread below him, smaller, farther away, at rest. He noticed how the light dimmed like small stars twinkling, how the wind brushed his skin. He’d been so afraid for so long of this moment, afraid of what he didn’t know, of what might be over them. But there, high above it all, he also realized something he hadn’t expected: He was safe. And not just safe. He was soaring.
The ride began its descent, but something inside him had shifted. He had faced his fear, had stepped into the unknown, and instead of finding terror, he had discovered something beautiful.
When the ride finally ended and he got off, he felt changed. The fair buzzed with energy around him, and yet Mason walked with a new confidence, as though he had unlocked a secret only the brave could understand.
He walked away that night holding a stuffed bear, his mother’s warm hand and the realization that sometimes, magic wasn’t in the games or rides — it was in the courage to try.