It was just after sunset when the last of the fairground lights came alive and were thrown like stars against the inky canvas of the night.  He could see it on the horizon as his old pickup approached the fairground; but, even clearer, he could see its reflection in his mind: the rides throwing whirling shadows onto the footprint-encrusted ground, the vendors weaving clouds of cotton candy for the eager children who waited below, the couples standing hand-in-hand in endless lines but not really caring how long they had to wait…

Do you remember?  He pressed his lips tightly together, reining in the question before it could be spoken.  Smiling gently, he reached toward the passenger seat and stroked the hand that lay on the armrest.

The fairgrounds were looming into view now.  He parked the truck on a patch of gravel, gave the hand a final squeeze, and stepped out into the night.  Heart aflutter, he hurried around the bed of the pickup and opened her door.

“Easy, girl.”

A quick rustle of fabrics and the locking of elbows, and she gained her feet on the gravel.  Slowly, he led her onto the velvet fairground soil.  Arms interlaced, they began their crawl into the night.

They paused to look at the pigs, asleep in their sties.  While she leaned against the wooden railings and watched the steady rise and fall of the pigs’ bellies, he took a moment to watch the fair, to grasp it, to just inhale it.  Everything was so different than it had once been—and yet it was just as he remembered.  The intoxicating smell of funnel cakes, of hot dogs and freshly-cut grass and the tart sweetness of her perfume.  The shrill cries of children, whisked away on the backs of wild-eyed stallions fastened eternally to the carousel.  The Ferris wheel—the ancient king of the county fair, gawky and lethargic and heavily veined where the paint was beginning to flake away—looming far above the silhouettes of the trees, with its hundred eyes of pink and blue which winked in synchrony with the stars.  And there, at his elbow, was she.

She used to go to the fair every summer as a child.  He could see her now, running in her long dress, chestnut hair let down about her waist; or pulling at her father’s wrist at the base of the carousel; or imagining castles and dragons and handsome princes as she trotted in steady circles about the pony stables, looking very much like a princess with freckles and chocolate on her chin.  He had never been to the fair himself, but she spoke so fondly of it that he decided to take her there.