Probably the most deranged convergence of chaos theory and existentialism I ever faced was a carnival ride called the “Zipper”. This gas powered, g-force monster was supposed to be fun. If you’ve never seen one, the ride was a long oval, upon which were suspended cages that held two passengers. These compartments flipped around on their own axes, while the boom zipped around as well. It sort of looked like the interlocking teeth of a zipper, hence its name.
A zipper from hell.
It was intense. When I rode in it, the door to the cage would only stay closed if the person operating the ride remembered to put a safety pin in the door. If the door opened, then the passengers would be flung out at high speed. This resulted in several deaths in the 70s.
So, your life depended on:
a) the thin, overused safety pin not breaking
b) a carnie
It was that second critical failure point that my friend decided to point out, just as the ride started to go.
“Oh shit,” he said, “I don’t think the safety pin is all the way in.”
The ride sped up. The car started flipping around. The g-forces slammed us into the lap bars.
“It’s coming out,” my friend screamed.
It was going to give!
I tried to hold myself in the car, clutching to the hanging bars above my head. My body continued to slam into the lap bars on the door.
Hell, I bet even The Rock would be unable to hold himself inside the car, given the g-forces at play. (When the ride first debuted, the rotation was much faster, the g-forces more intense, and a number of riders got bruises, whiplash, and other back injuries, as the ride smashed them around inside the car. They had to decree that two people must be in a car, so one person couldn’t get turned sideways and pulped.)
“I don’t want to die!” I shouted. Or more likely, a similarly craven sentiment with more colorful language.
My friend started laughing manically. That’s when I knew we were going to be fine. He was having fun.
The bastard.
Terrifying Conveyances
In Alpha Max, much of what happens to Maximilian Tundra centers around a variety of forms of transport, many of which are life-threatening. The inspiration for that had to come from somewhere, right?
Get your own copy of Alpha Max: An Existential Romp through an Absurd Multiverse, here!
Photo credit: “Zipper Ride – Maryland State Fair” by Patrick Gillespie is marked with CC BY 2.0.