colee
☾
lisbeth
Alice Mays woke up with dread in the pit of her stomach. She would be late for class. Yet again. Groaning in her pillow and at her phone displaying the wrong time, she rolled out of bed and quickly put an outfit together. She ran out of her dorm, eating a sour green apple--she didn't want to miss a meal, after all--and swinging her backpack over her shoulders. When she finished the first bite, she entered the building meant for film majors. On the second bite, she frantically checked her phone outside the classroom, making sure she was on time. What luck, she was right on time.
Then she watched the clock on her phone turn from 12:00 to 12:01. This time, she took a bite out of her apple angrily, entering the room. So much for her rush.
Grumbling, she sat beside her high school friend, Fran. The professor didn't mind her being a minute late, but Alice was bothered. She was quickly losing a bet. "I was this close to being on time," she told Fran, motioning with her free hand. Her index finger and thumb nearly touched. "This close," she said, resting her hand on her chin. "I blame the apple," she said as she blew a strand of auburn hair away from her face. Well, it was definitely because of her sleep schedule, but then she would have to blame herself. The apple was by far the better option. She would argue this point to the ground if Fran disagreed.
"Now's the time to start working on your final project, which can be completed by yourself or in pairs," said Professor Katmull, a woman with round glasses and curly brown hair. Alice flashed Fran a plotting smile. "Your goal is to depict history with a series of photos and videos, each one following the same color story and mood." She displayed a few examples on the projector of a different theme: Tradition. Images of warm candles, beautiful cakes, and loving smiles decorated the wall. Just by looking at the images, Alice could smell the scent of gingerbread, hear the laughter and giggles of family members, and feel the infectious happiness of a special time of year. She also felt a pang in her chest, since she hadn't talked to her family in a while. "Dead week before finals is the perfect time to prioritize this project. I've heard some students use this as an opportunity to travel out of country, but it's up to you." Alice wiggled her eyebrows, nudging Fran's side. "The rubric is in the syllabus, as always."
The professor started office hours, answering students' questions which Alice immediately ignored. Alice wanted to use this time to come up with a plan. "Come on, Fran, we have to go somewhere," Alice pleaded. She pulled out her laptop littered with stickers, searching for picturesque locations around the world. Nothing quite clicked. Alice hummed to herself, trying to come up with something less basic. Everyone wanted to see these locations. The only history they had was that they were beautiful, or well crafted. Alice's fingers danced above her keyboard as the gears in her head started to turn. "I was thinking…" she trailed off, starting to google discussion posts, reddit threads, and niche websites. She had tabs upon tabs of pages. Clicking on a small tab, only displaying the first letter of the webpage name, she turned the laptop Fran's way. It was an old blog post, so old that the website had display issues. "I found this place a little while back. What do you think?" In the blog, there was a photo of wooden coasters along the horizon, an old carousel, and a moldy wooden sign of, presumably, the amusement park's name. It went out of business roughly twenty years ago due to a flood. The damage was too great, and the owners abandoned it, leaving the attractions to rust and decay. The text on the page was off center and in numerous fonts, but an address was clearly written in bold.
"I mean, it has a ton of history?" Alice ended the sentence in a question, as she didn't remember the blog being so strange looking. It was just like any other blog, the ones with tons of ads in the margins, a pop up saying to subscribe to their newsletter. Maybe she remembered it incorrectly. She didn't want Fran to have any ammo on her, so she refreshed the page for good measure. The blog was as bizarre as it was before. "Or maybe we should take a picture of this first, I mean look at it." She was perplexed by this website. Hopefully it wouldn't give her laptop any viruses.
