The Wheel Waits for Spring

One last climb over the whole city put it in a single view: the harbor and its raised arm behind, the bridge strung between its towers, the green rectangle of the park, and out at the far edge, where the land finally runs out into the ocean, a giant wheel standing still against the sky.

The wheel was built right there on the beach in nineteen twenty, forged from steel and never moved since, and it still turns today with some of its cars swinging free and some fixed in place, exactly as it did on its opening day. Most of the rides around it had already gone quiet for the season, chains up, lights off, waiting for the crowds to come back in spring.

Down at street level a small stand still sold hot dogs, the same recipe a young couple built into a business almost a hundred years ago with their entire savings and a five-cent price, undercutting a bigger stand across the street that charged twice as much. The stand never closes for the season, whatever else around it does.

Polly landed on the empty boardwalk rail as the light dropped low over the water, gulls walking the tideline where the crowds had been only weeks before. Somewhere behind her the wheel gave one last slow turn against the darkening sky, and she lifted off low over the waves, heading out the way the water went, toward whatever came next.