When the carousel stops.

It's gears rusty.

It's horses dusty.

It's memories musty like an old man's cigarette and whisky phlegm coughed into an jar of mustard hoping one of his grandchildren will beg for yet 'another fucking hotdog grampa'.

'In my day we didn't say fucking to elders you little shits.'

'In your day you were too busy hoping a dinosaur wouldn't sit on your last fucking rock pile which is what you called video games, now make with the hotdogs or we won't have time for ice-cream you cranky old cunt!'

When the carousel is silent. Its poles slimy. It's carnies Limey. Its music whiney like a pool boys night on the town after his day when the dirtiest pool he had to scrub was cavernous, wet, and between the legs of a demanding and scary housewife.

'Come inside for some lemonade, there are no leaves to scoop but there is something crusty'.

'What did you say grandpa?'

'Whoops, sorry I was just fantasizing about your future career, want mustard on that dog?'

When the carousel stops, the times changed, the nights cold, the moments small, the glass murky, and nothing good on TV, at least not on the free to air channels, and the fucking cable is out again, we are left with just us. People. Folks. Skin and boobs and shins and hair and spleens, you know, people. And it turns out they can be interesting sometimes.

Case in point two middle aged ladies sat next to me at lunch today and had a conversation that went exactly like this:

'I didn't know you died?'

'Oh yeah, I've been dying for a while, I like it, but it's messy'

'I don't want to die. Well I do. But I don't have the space for it'.

'Oh you must die, it's wonderful. It doesn't take as much space as you'd think'.

'Really, to die?'

'Trust me, once you've died you'll want to keep dying'.