Nightmare Carnival

He goes down to the Popping Fields. The blue is so blue and the green so green and Shelton feels normal there. The balloon animals line up in front of him, they’ve stopped crowding now, they know he’ll do his best and despatch them as quickly as possible, they form an ordered queue and wait their turn. He kills them all swiftly and with compassion, he stays even longer tonight, he stays until his arms feel like rubber as well, and he feels their gratitude. But eventually he has to return to the caravan, he can’t stay loved forever—“No more for now,” they say, and up the ladder he goes. When he reaches the top he sees that Ruth has left. She has taken a few clothes, not much. There’s a note. I hope you unnerstan’, it says, and the handwriting is big and childish, too childish to be the work of someone who is setting out into the world.

Some days he wakes up and the anger has gone. It is such a relief. Because it has been burning inside him, and he doesn’t want to be angry, he doesn’t want to hate her. He wakes, and he sees it all from her point of view — it’s rational she left, even sensible — and he’s pleased for her, and proud of the courage she’s shown. He only wants the best for her. He’s only ever wanted the best. He couldn’t keep her forever. Didn’t he always know that? No one should have to spend their lives with a man like him — just like her mother said, it was the exact same thing, it was right that she left too, he should have expected it.

And then comes the rage. He feels betrayed. And so lonely, so very very lonely. He loved her with all his heart, he loved her sincerely. Maybe his love wasn’t up to much, but he deserves better than this, doesn’t he? He deserves some scrap of happiness. He’s not a bad man. He tries not to be a bad man. He goes through the caravan and picks up everything that was hers, everything she left behind — and more painful still, everything she ever gave him, the little pictures she drew him as a child, yes, what use will they ever be to him now! He gathers them up in his arms, his arms are full of Ruth, every scrap of her — and he flings them out the caravan door. Minutes later he’s rushing outside to rescue it all.

He goes to the circus and asks if anyone knows where he might find Ed. If Ed is coming back, if Ed has gone far — if they saw whether Ed left alone. No one seems to know Ed. No one has ever heard of Ed, or anyone who has ever been called Ed, they grunt and turn away from him. He goes to the circus a lot.

He loved Ruth with all his heart. He couldn’t have squeezed more love out of it if he’d tried, there was no more love in him to give. But it wasn’t enough. It so plainly wasn’t enough.

And one night he resists the call of the trapdoor — instead he gathers up all her belongings again, and takes them out on to the common, and before he can change his mind he sets fire to them and he makes himself stand and watch as they burn.

He hopes she is all right. Wherever she is, he hopes she is happy. He hopes she is so happy she never has to think of him. Or rather, he hopes she sometimes thinks of him, and it makes her a little sad. Or rather — no. He hopes she can’t sleep at night for the guilt of what she has done to him, that she dared leave him, that she dared have a life of her own. He hopes that every night she cries. He hopes that she cries so hard she can’t breathe. He hopes she chokes. He knows if she comes back to him he’ll fling his arms around her and never let her go. He knows if she comes back to him he’ll tell her he’s never loved her and he doesn’t want to see her again.

One day he goes to the circus and asks about Ed. They laugh at him. He gets angry, he knows they’re hiding something. He swings a punch. They punch back, and then they kick, and when they’ve had their fun they leave him bleeding on the ground. And a part of him is pleased it hurts so much.

They come that evening, of course — a whole posse of them, and they tell him they don’t want him on their patch any longer. They come with sticks. He pleads with them. He tells them he has to stay — because if he leaves, when his daughter wants to come home, how will she ever find him? They tell him his daughter is never coming home, and he knows it is true. He weeps. And then they beat him again, just for good measure.

That night he packs up the caravan and sets off to find another circus, and pretends that he is letting Ruth go, and she can live her life the way she needs to, and that running away is an act of great magnanimity and not cowardice.