Official Story Time

You Can’t Ride That Man, He’s a Ghost Man

We were married beneath the auspices of a rollicking coaster, our hair spun sugar in the gusty lurch of overhead cars—the splendid screams, the raising of desperate hands, the suckling on spoonfuls of frozen raspberry lemonade, the scent of rapidly-generated fried doughballs that exploded in our mouths, our hands. I flipped his bangs with my free finger, and repeatedly we reeled through Monster Plantation until the bedraggled animatronic shag mammoths retracted their acrylic claws. I spread even sandwiches, intercepted afternoon calls, rigged extraordinary windsocks, noteworthy backsplash murals, but it wasn’t long before David met his ghost boyfriend behind the washing machine. Pinching my flesh into shrunken shirt dresses, selvedge denim, I began to launder away, in coin-operated machines, to achieve that desired delicate softness, light lofty warmth, while David spoonfed his ghostman chocolate ice cream, watched it dribble down his transparent esophagus, occasionally prying fingers in, to taste. Alone, I watched gumballs spiral down intestinal shafts, waiting for a pink, settling on recurring green, stale, unfit for bubbles, belabored, jaw-throbbing smacks as my legs dangled from the behemoth dryer, vibrating, pulsing imitation radiance. The bras and sheets so dank, but in front of me a freckle-breasted woman with serrated teeth airing clean purple towels. Flapping and flying, buoyant in the warm milky din, her mouth rounded in anticipation of aftershower. STOP, I pressed, releasing my towels from tumble. I held them, smelled something like my skin in the folds.