TWILIGHT CARNIVAL - Fire Eater

[Pamila Payne]

Outside the carnival grounds in a stand of trees, a man smokes a hand rolled cigarette, listening impassively to the last dying round of rising screams and falling moans. He is reminded of cattle, braying and staggering to slaughter as the crowds begin to exit, searching for parked trucks in a sea of parked trucks, counting up dazed or wailing children, and gathering lost wits for the trip back home. When the time is just right, he jerks the brim of his sweat-stained cap down over his eyes and carries a large, battered metal watering can, wading through the crowd with all the unquestionable authority of a man with a job to do, just another roustabout on his way to work. An hour later, the wind is free to rush through empty corridors of closed up canvas tent flaps, wump, wump, wumping against the rope tie-downs, skitter empty paper cups and cotton candy cones, smashed popcorn bags and drifts of tissue-thin wax paper into senseless dancing spirals beneath dark, swaying string lights. He steps out of the shadows and commences to traverse the grounds in a sensible, orderly fashion, splashing liquid from the can outside the lairs of painted whores, ignoring snatches of coarse talk and shrieking laughter, outside lamplit shaded windows full of deformed silhouettes – men who couldn't rightly be called men – stripping off sequins and tights, outside trailers shaking and booming with the boasting of crooks and thieves as they count their money, Satan-trained to lure the ignorant and soil the innocent, outside cribs of abominations best hidden away and left to god's reckoning, but soon to be released from their perverse display. It's a shame about the animals, he thinks, pausing to listen to the soft, far off growling of some large cat, the unnatural prehistoric blast of elephants and the more familiar shuffling whinny of horses, as he takes a wooden match from his pocket and strikes it alight with his thumbnail...


TWILIGHT CARNIVAL

[Chris Campbell]

Oh and I love the line about the animals....

[Chris Campbell]

Pamila you are the queen of creepy - and I mean that in the best possible way! Thank you for all you did to make this carnival real.

[Linda]

Here, here. I echo AK's comments about the hackles on my neck. Shiver. and Harry's, too. Super. Carnivals do have this dark underbelly, sneaky, slippery, intangible, but always pulsing on the periphery. Perhaps that is why we are drawn to the noise and lights... Peace, Linda

[Harry]

Pamila, I love your writing. Someone really must start paying you to do this. Harry

[Pamila Payne]

Sorry I messed up the posting times... : (

[JMac]

men who couldn't rightly be called men- I thought this was one of the most powerful lines. It's his exucuse to murder. And of course, I loved the last line. This is another amazing piece, Pamila. Kate says it pefect "You give eerie, class."

[Daniel]

I really like the darkness of your descriptions. Makes you think they desearve whats coming. Shame about the animals though... Innocents scrificed in the cleansing of the wicked.

[Paul D Brazill]

Magnificent!