SmokeLong Quarterly

You wait your whole life to get to what you believe is the end. But so far, it’s just a long line and more waiting. Screens, monitors, and other people who’ve waited lifetimes. You’re disappointed there’s no music. The worker in the yellow sweater reminds you of your mother. People are persistently upbeat, anxious. They wait with smiles and sad eyes, bend their heads toward you. People up ahead go too fast and disappear. You realize it’s just a glorified roller coaster. The woman in the yellow sweater checks to make sure you’re strapped in properly. You’re claustrophobic, you want to break free and run home, back to your house with the orange cat. You want to be in charge of what’s left of your life.

Your car jerks forward. This is it. Still no fucking music. But here you go, surrounded by strangers. Way too fast around the curve.

Into silence.

Complete and utter darkness.

You swivel backwards.

Centrifugal force holds you, pulls you down, down, down, down, down.

A blinding magnesium white

and then, in the most perfect stereo ever, Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears,

you circle around, your heart surges and you laugh, your face is wet with tears, but you’re laughing.

You’re in Seventh Grade kissing Carla Wilson, you’re getting pummeled with a dodge ball in gym, your dog is young and running through the backyard tearing around the azaleas. Your mom in a yellow sweater is calling to you from the front steps. Your brother sprays you with the water hose and you run barefoot after him. Your dad sinks a basketball from halfway down the driveway. You’re in an Arby’s parking lot the night of high school graduation swearing time will never cause you to forget this group of friends. You toast the future. Your Toyota Corolla is packed to the windows. You wave goodbye to your parents, pretending not to cry. You wait at the front of the chapel as she moves toward you with shell-colored roses. You close your eyes to remember but it was only a passing image and like a dream, it’s fallen away.  People nearby count your breaths, the time in between them. They remember the you before all this. They can’t believe it. Your mother’s head rests on your left hand. You gasp because the ride takes you farther still. At home, your cat keeps running to your kitchen, waiting. Your eyes are open to the ceiling but they no longer see. Your feet are cold. Your mouth opens and closes, opens and closes. You’re trying to say I love you, trying to make them understand. It all went by so fast. You waited on her to come back to you. You always thought she’d come back. You kept her things in the upstairs bedroom just like she left them. Soon you’ll be so far away that even your mother can’t reach you. You squeeze the hands holding yours and…

you disembark into warm rain. You hail a cab to a long dark hallway with familiar voices receding. You have a brass key that fits a door that you open and walk into a room with a single bed. You dream of a man who follows you through a maze, of a riderless horse galloping a dirt road.

You finally awake to an enormous picture window overlooking a valley. A temperate jungle with avocado trees and grape vines. You smell waffles. You make your way back down the long hallway now filled with sunlight. There’s laughing, chairs scraping the floor.

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“Death, or the Guardians of the Galaxy Ride at Epcot” is a finalist in The SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction 2026.