"These were your grandmother's eyeglasses," my mother handed the fragile, dainty accessory to me. "She told me to give them to you on your seventeenth birthday."
I took them, nodding in thanks and awe at my mother, and inspected them in my hands, careful not to drop them. They were thin-framed and amber. The lenses were smudged on both sides, and the entirety of it looked homemade, as the wires connecting it all together seemed uneven. I tried to slip them on and my mother quickly brought her hand up and prevented me from putting them on my face.
"Don't ever put them on," she said quietly. And I never did.
Today was finally the day that I would go and take pictures of the abandoned amusement park in the middle of the city I lived in. I had eyed the location for a while, yet once I had the sufficient funds to purchase a camera I deemed fit to capture its beautiful and tranquil--albeit haunting--demeanor, the weather and time were never on my side.
I woke up as the sun was rising, got my camera ready, and drove for twenty minutes into the downtown area. It suddenly became extremely cloudy as I arrived at my destination. The dismal look of the place sent a chill down my spine, yet I was ready for the pictures I was to take.
It's not necessarily illegal to enter; high schoolers usually go for dares and with their friends. It's been years since I graduated, and even I remember longing to sneak in with my friends to play Truth and Dare and Spin the Bottle with our faces illuminated by their cigarette lighters.
I stepped out of my car with my Canon in one hand and a light jacket in the other. I put the camera's neck strap on, as I could sometimes be clumsy and didn't want $3,500 to go down the drain. The grey clouds hung low in the sky, adding to the gloomy look. I had to admit: this place was a bit creepy.
In the left pocket of my jacket were my grandmother's old eyeglasses. I had taken them everywhere with me and they seemed to provide good luck--as I had made it this far in life already--but maybe it was just me thinking that.
As I was adjusting my camera to the light after finding a spot near the old Ferris Wheel I heard a noise and whipped my head in the direction it came from. Another chill shook my body and I slipped my jacket on. A breeze shook the amusement part and I heard old rides creak.
After a few seconds of silence accompanying my speeding heart, I shook off my tenseness and snapped a quick photo in order to see what more adjusting I needed to do with my camera.
When the picture loaded, my screen flashed and the image changed for a split second. The scene had. . . Color.514Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2KDF9nNcDq
Confused and a bit scared at this point, I took another photo and waited for it to load. Again, the image flashed from colorful and vivid to the dull, abandoned park I found myself in. I took another one and in the colorfulness I saw what looked like a figure; a human.
Tentatively, I reached for my grandmother's eyeglasses. It had been 5 years since I received them from my mother, and I had always longed to see the world through them, but never this much. I suddenly had the urge to slip them on. I held them open in my hand and as I was about to put them on, a loud bird cawed and I yelped, dropping them on the gravel surface.
I was knocked from my daze and picked up the ancient glasses. There was a huge crack in one of the lenses and I wave of guilt washed over me. After a bit of self-loathing, I replaced the glasses in my coat pocket and held the viewing window of my camera up to my eye.
The ferris wheel lurched into motion through the window, and its lights turned on. People began slowly flickering into place. I removed the camera from my face and stared in shock at the ride that stopped, its riders vanished. I looked through again and the people on the ride began waving and posing in my direction. I suddenly felt dizzy. I was not okay.
When I regained my composure, I held my camera up to my eye and slowly walked and spun around, watching people in 1950s clothing run about, laughing and smiling. The gloominess of the abandoned park melted around me into the environment the viewing window produced.
What I was seeing was surreal. Maybe it was a dream? But it felt so vivid, so real. When I edged my camera away from my eye, the scene melted away and I was back in 2018. I was alone.
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