Little Mary Anne didn’t complete her chores today. She’d be punished, brutally. Daddy already had the coins out for her to purchase it herself at the fair. Mommy lent her not a kind eye.

‘You should’ve known better, Mary. Your behaviour is unfit. Just unfit.’

Unfit was no good. It was the opposite of fit, an antonym. It ought to be synonymous, ought to be healthy.

So Little Mary Anne took the coins and her parents let her get lost in the fair. It travelled here every spring, some winters, rarely summers, and never fall. Fall represented decay. The staff once told her that the place would become a black hole if they arrived in autumn and everyone within would die.

Black holes ripped people apart, worse than wild animals and creatures, because you had no fighting chance. Nightmares joined her in bed since. Her parents often said, after learning, ‘If you don’t do this, we’ll call them and bring you here during the fall.’

Luckily, it was spring, and quite fit weather. Except it was night, and nightly spring chilled the bones to a pain. She kept her neon oversized parka over her lips, which was too hot, but the only way her parents would find her when their game became enough.

Lights of pink, gold, and a sharp blue shimmered on signs. A game here claimed she should test her luck. Classic whack a mole sat beside it. A mirror maze Mommy insisted she’d get lost in the minute she entered is at the brink of the fair with a never-ending line.

But it was the prize-win game she was supposed to want. Blind-folded throwing with only enough for one round. If she could win something pleasant like sweets, her parents would forgive her.

That old thing was in the corner, unloved compared to all the more glamorous games, crowded with people—mostly zitty boy teenagers and dolled up girl teenagers, who were just as zitty but hid it better. They didn’t pay her any mind, but their Mommies and Daddies probably had them on missions, too.

She walked until she reached the corner. Until the salted butter popcorn and the sugary overload of cotton candy smells ran out.

There the same worker who’d handled it all these years stood behind the booth, always holding an ancient looking book. She was a simple woman whose black hair fell in straight unbroken panels down her back. Skin peeked out of her front hair. Mommy called that balding.

‘Hi.’

She slid the woman some coins. Her hand swallowed it and the other spun out the ticket for her to play. ‘Having fun?’

‘Yes,’ she lied, second-nature, because while lying wasn’t good, Mommy and Daddy already taught her that certain lying wasn’t bad.

The woman got up, tied the sash round Mary’s eyes, and pushed her in front of the machine. It was a bit like an arcade box but with a wider screen and no joy sticks. She could picture it in her mind from how often she’s played. She opened her hand and the woman placed the ball—warm, fuzzy—inside her palm.

‘Are you ready?’

‘Mm.’

Noises sang from the machine. Its screen would be changing by now. She tried to pinpoint the right one, the sparkling noise. The game was all about throwing to the right noise and having the ball hit a part of the screen. Whichever item was closest was the item won.

As long as she got nothing sharp she’d be fine.

A tinkling sang from the left side of the screen, splat near the middle. That was the grand prize. She’d never been able to win it and it was too risky to try. All the sharp things surrounded it, like the toys babies choke on and the weapon plushes.

Instead, she waited for the clinking of the keys, the swish of the tickets, the clunk of the rocks. Three seconds played. She heard them ring their familiar series. Rightmost top corner it sounded. She engaged all her muscles, her mind, and poured it into the swing.

The ball hit solid on the screen. The worker made a sound. When Mary ripped the blindfold off, she wished she hadn’t. The screen’s cracked, a shard of the plastic dangling from where the ball struck.

The worker’s already phoning whoever to fix this old, disgusting machine which never worked in Mary’s favour ever.

In the woman’s panic, Mary walked up to it and plucked her prize, the dangling shard, and held it tight till it cut a line of red across her palm.

At least the punishment will be fair and fit.