{"id":66595,"date":"2025-09-28T20:28:39","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T19:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flurakus.ch\/wp\/?p=66595"},"modified":"2025-09-28T21:21:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T20:21:05","slug":"occupied-by-absence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flurakus.ch\/wp\/?p=66595","title":{"rendered":"Occupied by Absence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video height=\"1080\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1920 \/ 1080;\" width=\"1920\" autoplay loop muted src=\"https:\/\/flurakus.ch\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Occupied-by-Absence-Worse.mp4\" playsinline><\/video><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Visuals &amp; Animation: Midjourney, Video: Apple Movie, Text: ChatGPT, Master of Prompts &amp; Idea: Me<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>They told us the park was closing for renovations. &#8220;A few weeks, maybe a month,&#8221; management said, smiling like always \u2014 too wide, too shiny. I was the guy who sold cotton candy near the Ferris wheel. Twelve years, rain or shine, I spun sugar clouds for sticky fingers and screaming kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then one day, everyone just left. No official memo, no goodbye party. Gates locked. Power off. Just\u2026 silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>But the weird part? I came back, a week later. Couldn\u2019t stay away. Nostalgia, maybe. Or habit. That\u2019s when I noticed it: the popcorn machine was still warm. The teacups? Spinning. Slowly. On their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At first, I thought I was losing it. Maybe a prank? Maybe squatters? But there were no signs of people. No footprints in the dust. Just&#8230; movement. Lights flickering on in the haunted house. The carousel creaking to life at dusk. Music playing \u2014 softly \u2014 though the speakers had been dead for months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I started visiting at night. Watching. Listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One evening, I left a cone of cotton candy on the counter. When I came back, it was gone. Replaced by a single ticket stub. No date. Just one word printed across it:&nbsp;<em>Admit<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I never figured out who \u2014 or what \u2014 still used the park. I only know it wasn\u2019t for us anymore. Maybe it never was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still, I go back sometimes. I stand by the Ferris wheel and listen to the calliope echo through the fog. The place isn&#8217;t abandoned. It&#8217;s just&#8230; changed hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And somehow, I think I was never really an employee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just a guest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Who overstayed his welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They told us the park was closing for renovations. &#8220;A few weeks, maybe a month,&#8221; management said, smiling like always \u2014 too wide, too shiny. I was the guy who sold cotton candy near the Ferris wheel. Twelve years, rain or shine, I spun sugar clouds for sticky fingers and screaming kids. Then one day, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[805],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flurakus.ch\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flurakus.ch\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flurakus.ch\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flurakus.ch\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flurakus.ch\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66595"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/flurakus.ch\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66600,"href":"https:\/\/flurakus.ch\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66595\/revisions\/66600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flurakus.ch\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flurakus.ch\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flurakus.ch\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}