Dark Ride

There’s a dream she had every once
in a while, where for some reason she’d
find herself on rails. Unable to see her
own hands out in front of her, even when
the lights came up and honed in on
worn out animatronics in fixed locations with
predetermined movements and words.
Plastic skin peeled off their wire wrapped
skeletons and the glass around their eyes
reflected green at a distance. They weren’t
doing anything recognizable at all, but
if she had to guess it looked like they were
trying to remember how their bodies
worked. One of them would always slowly
rotate a bolt at the corner of their jaw, until
it would finally fall and send echos,
much like laughter, through the tunnel.
It never could reach far enough to get it back.