“The Redshaw Sea Star” by Kim Frank

A short story by alum Kim Frank (fiction, ’11) is featured in The American Literary Review:

The idea rose ten stories into the air. Open gondolas shaped like birdcages painted royal blue, canary yellow, purple, and green. Striped canopy roofs. Lit up spokes stretching every direction and all of it changing colors. “A Ferris wheel,” said Jimmy out loud to no one, “is exactly what we need.” He secured the replaced sections of rusted track behind the dragon’s head and climbed back into the train at the top of the roller coaster. The ocean was rough, typical for November. White caps chopped clear out to the horizon line, and high tide rushed up underneath the pier. He surveyed the park: torn leather Scrambler seats, Flying Swings clanked and tangled, an empty cement square where the Orbit once stood, and the faded blue ticket booth where a young Rosalind, with her blond ponytail and sweet sun freckles, had studied for a college entrance exam she’d never take. They’d been in this together, a family business. Third generation. Only Ros was gone, having just left him after twenty years. He rode the coaster to the bottom. Why not a giant Ferris wheel? Biggest on the Jersey Shore. He pulled out his phone to tell her, still doing even that after two months.

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