Nightmare Carnival

Once upon a time the animals used to talk to him. He’d pick up a balloon rabbit in his arms, and maybe its ears would be in the wrong place, maybe the air would be running out and it’d look so weak and baggy. The rabbit would be in such pain. And it would tell him how frightened it was. “I want the pain to stop,” the rabbit would say, “but oh, Mr. Shelton, I’m so very scared of death.” And Shelton would stroke at its rubber skin, and shush it, and kiss it on top of its head. He’d say there was nothing to be afraid of. That soon the rabbit would be at peace and all its worries would be done, and it’d be in a place where the blue and green would be bluer and greener still. It would shudder in his arms with fear and he would stroke it patiently until the shuddering had stopped. “Thank you,” the rabbit would say, and Shelton would nod, and give a wink — and he’d stab at the balloon then, and the rabbit wouldn’t see the knife coming, the rabbit would never know a thing.

Since Ruth left, the animals don’t talk to him anymore. He doesn’t know why. Perhaps they’re no longer afraid. Perhaps they’re just used to death, and the sure comfort it must bring. He’ll pick up a balloon rabbit and it’ll sit in his arms quite complacently, it won’t even look at him. He won’t try to talk to it either. What’s the point?

During the day he sits outside the caravan. The children come by, maybe, and he’ll make them animals, maybe. Sometimes the children will be disappointed enough to cry, and he’ll suggest they follow him inside where he can give them something special. But that doesn’t often work. Not now Ruth isn’t there with her smile.

Once he makes a little girl cry so hard that it breaks through his numbness. He actually looks at the animal he has made her, and it’s just a snake, and it isn’t a very good snake, he hasn’t even blown much air into it. He apologises. He congratulates her on her discernment, it really is the most terrible of balloon snakes. Can he make it up to her? The girl’s father looks wary, but there’s a sincerity to Shelton’s desire to put things right. “Please,” he says, “please, give me a second chance.” The girl agrees.

He sits her down on the bed, on Ruth’s old bed. “Now then,” he says, “what animal shall we make together?”

She shakes her head.

“Would you like a giraffe? Little girls like giraffes. Or an elephant? Come on now. Whatever you most want.”

She shakes her head again, but she smiles. It’s a nice smile. It makes him think of Ruth.

“How about I just make you the very best animal I can?” he says. And he takes a dozen balloons — no, two dozen. He begins to twist them together, but carefully this time, with love, with art. “Fluffy ears? Nice long legs?” It’ll be something special, this will be his masterpiece. She’s still smiling, she’s looking at him, she won’t take her eyes off him, and it’s not with curiosity exactly, it seems like some sort of devotion. And once more he thinks of Ruth, the way Ruth used to stare at him when she was just a little girl, she wanted no one else in the world except her dadda. “Do you want horns? Shall I put on a tail?” His hands are moving fast now, he’s reaching for still more balloons, and look at all the colours, whatever this animal turns out to be it’ll be unusual! She puts her finger in her mouth, and nibbles on it, and he gives her a wink — didn’t Ruth do that exact same thing, the finger in the mouth, the nibbling, the head tilted to one side? Maybe he could persuade this girl to stay with him. He’d have to ask the father to stay too, of course. Maybe there’d be room for all three of them here. The girl is smiling still, but she’s looking away now, what’s she looking at, why has she turned away? He wonders where Ruth is. He hopes she is happy. He hopes that she misses him. “Nearly there, sweetheart,” Shelton promises the little girl, “nearly there, why won’t you look? Why not look at me?” And she takes the finger from her mouth, and looks, and she stretches her mouth into what will surely be the biggest smile ever, she stretches it so far that screaming comes out.

The father isn’t waiting outside any longer. The father is in the caravan. “What is it?” he shouts. “What have you done to her?” The little girl recoils, she can’t say a word, she just points her nibbled finger at the balloon animal Shelton is holding.

And at last Shelton takes a look at the creature. A strange contortion of limbs, sticking out at broken angles. Lumps that seem to swell at haphazard intervals — are they horns, stumps of leg — something crueller, are they cysts, they are yellow and beneath the darker colour of the main body they suggest something sickly, the yellow looks like pus. There’s not just one head, there’s at least two, there’s a third that might be a half-formed head, it’s impossible to say — the heads growing out of the first like tumours, and they all seem to have faces, and those faces are twisted in pain.