deny (click for more text) Revolving text Site map	There are not that many people in the ferris wheel line. You start counting the couples and the empty cars. We won't have to wait very long, you say. How do you know the people will stay in couples? I ask. It is easy, you say. Just watch them. The ferris wheel has begun to shudder to a stop. A boy about two with a sticky lollipop gets off and starts running through the crowd before his mother can extricate the remaining child--a larger girl with vacuous eyes. She yells at the crowd to stop him, but they do nothing. You squeeze my hand and leave me to run after the kid. I watch as you part the crowd, your hands spreading people away like the shallow waves of the Red Sea. The child stumbles and starts to cry, not very far from the ferris wheel line. You offer him your hand and I think I can see your smile from here. He cries louder and points to his shoe. You kneel like a lord and gently tie the shoe up. The mother arrives, breathless, carrying the girl half in, half out of an oversized stroller. You talk with her, stroking the boy's hair. Her back blocks my view so I cannot see your smile now, but I imagine it. I imagine she smiles back at you. I nod to myself, smiling, as you rejoin me. Thanks, I say. You would have done the same, you say. No, I say. I would have been too afraid to care. Are you sure? you ask. I shrug my shoulders.
	turn enter