Ballad of Candy Cotton.

It was just a manequin head.

The kind that came with bare shoulders and heavy makeup.

It sat in the bucket seat of the ferris wheel, going round and round.

Someone picked it up, laughed, and kicked it like a school yard rubber ball.

The head bounced in angles across the patched and cracking pavement before finally coming to a rest in front of the man that sold the cotton candy.

He stood in front of the head, the head that was missing a body, and noted the colors of the makeup. He didn’t know names of these colors, but recognized the basics. Pink. Purple. Blue.

He had a thought, and quickly snatched up the homeless head.

He pulled the folded blade from his pocket and grabbed a fistful of her hair. He hacked it off, handful by handful, his missing tooth mouth twisted in a sinister line, mimicking a smile.

The shadows that the light cast upon the mannequin face made her seem almost terrified. A little girl noticed the head writhing in pain as her daddy picked her up and placed her in the tea cup.

The fake plastic hair fell in quiet clumps repeatedly until the Cotton Candy Man was satisfied with hair barely two centimeters long. He held the head up to his own face and laughed maniacally. He eyed the vats that spun the cotton and quickly opened a lid and stuck the head in.

He moved it around and around, from one vat to the next.

Soon, the hairless, homeless, mannequin head had a multicolored beehive.

He tongued the spot in the front of his mouth where a tooth used to go. He winked at the pretty lady. He set her on display by his money box.

He wrote in big blue letters on a small box, Candy Cotton, and placed the namecard in front of his beautiful lady.

And then, I woke up.