The Perpetual Motion Machine by Brittany Ackerman

Author:Brittany Ackerman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Published: 2018-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

The Transportation Center

We are on the monorail from EPCOT to the Transportation and Ticket Center. When I was little, we used to wait so I could ride in the front car with the conductor. I always wanted to do this, but if the line was too long, we took whatever we could get and rode in another car.

I know all the stops. If you’re riding from Magic Kingdom, you’ll stop at the Grand Floridian, then the Polynesian. If you’re coming from the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC), you’ll stop at the Contemporary and then off to Magic Kingdom. From EPCOT, you only make one stop, but today it’s taking longer than I thought it would. I’m looking out the window. Skyler is taking his medication and Mom is watching him. I count each pill as she hands it to him. No one else on board seems to notice this transaction. No one else can see that we are doped up on Disney magic.

Below, there are two men walking on Disney grass. Two employees who make sure the place gets taken care of, that everything works and flows in proper Disney fashion. We pass over them and move into more parking lots. Hundreds of cars, trailers, buses, some adorned with Disney bumper stickers, some with kids filing out wearing matching T-shirts for a field trip, some families making their way into the park. I want to look out this window forever. There’s nothing better than warm sun coming through the glass.

I’m home from college for winter break and we’re all in sweaters. We come for a day trip this time, hitting up a few of the parks during the day and then driving back home at night. Every time my brother goes to the bathroom I think he’s using. Every time he closes his eyes I think he’s nodding out. Every time he laughs at something I say, I wonder if it’s funny because he’s as high as a Georgia pine and he thinks neither Mom nor I can tell.

Yet it’s one of the best days of my life. Sitting here on the monorail, we are situated so nicely in the warm car. We are escaping reality again. We are not telling each other the things that need to be said, like, “Sky still has a problem. I’m not okay. Nothing is okay.” I stay quiet and look out at the Disney trees, so tall, so green.

We’re only three hours from home, but this place feels so timeless to us. It has a centripetal force that pulls us in. We always come back. It’s always the same. My brother starts to fall asleep. We’re heading toward the center. We seek something on this monorail, the one-way track to where we always knew we’d go. I never see him anymore, I never get to spend any time with him. I’m so caught up in just being with him, the wonderful unrelenting love I have for my brother, that I forget about the wreckage ahead, what will happen when we leave Orlando.

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