Nightmare Carnival

I try to doubt everything she’s told me in our silent drive through the countryside, holding hands like lovers. I’ve just about talked myself into believing poor Alexandra suffers from some plausible delusion she might be treated for with the latest drugs and quackeries — I’ve heard electroshock is back — but when we catch sight of Bartholomew’s place, there’s no doubt. It’s a sea of cars, mostly modest, carnival-going sorts of cars. Some even sport our bumper sticker—Sam’s Carnival of Dreams. (“People go for dreams,” Sam says. “That’s what we are — a weird fucking dream.”) I can’t park anywhere close to the tent. It’s surrounded by cars from all the states on our meandering route, a scattering of rentals throughout. Some survivors must’ve flown in to the nearest airport.

The Ferris wheel, near vintage, the classiest thing on the midway, spins near empty, but for some of the help from the big house, taking a break. Their master must be inside the tent. There’s a handful of kids on the merry-go-round overseen by a lone woman, her eyes on the big top. I tell Alexandra to wait in the car and keep out of sight while I peek inside, scanning the crowd’s faces. The tent is filled with ill-will wishers waiting for Alexandra to perform, enduring the other acts merely to be polite. It’s written on their faces. There are no children.

Otto is bending steel, but no one cares.

There’s not much left of the show. The halfhearted clowns have fled, or maybe Sam just gave them the night off to cut down on his overhead. Sam’s fairly dressed up for him in a tattered corduroy suit a couple sizes too small. He’s sitting with Bartholomew, trying to impress, telling his usual stories. He’s washed and brushed out his lush gray mane, tossing it now and then.

Bartholomew has a look of superiority on his face that makes me sympathize even with Sam who as usual has not a clue what’s going down. He probably broke out the good bud for this event.

Otto holds up a rebar pretzel and gets a smattering of applause. He usually gives it to someone in the crowd but this time doesn’t bother. The kid from earlier is sitting right up front, chewing furiously on a mouthful of gum, like he’s trying to make his ears pop. He’s already up there with Alexandra, where everyone looks now and then, tilting their heads back, though all that’s up there is the rigging for Alexandra’s act, the machinery of fate.

Otto starts into his big finale, lying on his back, foot-juggling a refrigerator. It’s not as hard as it looks — the compressor in the refrigerator is a hollow aluminum shell — but it’s still fairly impressive. This crowd can barely manage to give the dancing refrigerator a glance. He tosses it high, balances it on one foot. Nothing.

The kid takes his hand out of his pocket, checks a phone, and puts it back. Maybe the rest of the family is on the way. Wouldn’t want to miss this.

I return to Alexandra. “Otto’s almost done. So who’s Bartholomew?”

“An avenging angel.”

I know better than to smirk. This nightmare is unimpressed by my skepticism. “And Jacob, was he an angel too?”

“Yes. Fallen. Heartless.”

“I want to believe you, but—”

She puts her fingers to my lips. “Don’t. Don’t believe me.”

Don’t love her, don’t believe her. So of course I do, and she disappears into her trailer to change. I hurry into the tent to adjust the Sands of Time. I totally forgot. I use a stopwatch and a scale to add the necessary seconds, the moments of her life, before I set the mechanism. There’s a moment I consider tampering with it, leaving her hanging when the song ends — and it’s my turn to look up, to imagine her there when silence fell and she was still alive, imagine her dying in silence, her nightmare fulfilled. I measure carefully. I set the mechanism, hurrying to finish before her intro begins, and the tent is filled with the thunderous applause of an audience ready for blood.

She sings her opening numbers exceptionally well. She must feel the approach of death with near certainty tonight. The crowd peers at her with unbroken malevolence, some openly grieving for those stolen from them by her song. They pray for her doom.

I imagine life ahead without her, and I don’t want it. I understand what she meant when she said she was trying to save my life, but it was too late. I already loved her. You can’t imagine what it’s like to sing like that! No, but I can listen. She doesn’t just live to sing. She lives to die to sing.

Her song fills the moonlit empty nights, vast and silent otherwise, with beauty, driving through the desert toward the dark horizon into the dark abyss, into nothing. Letting go. When it’s time.

There’s my cue. A spot finds my hand, and I pull the lever. The Sands of Time begin to flow.

Listen. Listen, goddammit. She’s started her song.

I’m ready.

THE LION CAGE by Genevieve Valentine