Nightmare Carnival

I’d kissed my son’s forehead in the Tunnel of Brotherly Love, and I’d come out into a different world. Only, only this one had cracks in it. And there were clowns watching me through those cracks. Clowns waiting for me to get it, this big joke.

How many clowns can you fit in one man’s head?

I fell to my knees in the basement, the impact jarring my teeth.

Tina’s hand was to the doorknob at the top of the stairs now, the light on that doorknob already splintering.

I raised my hand to hide my face from her, opened my mouth to tell her not to come down here, but then, instead, my mouth said, “You two have fun?”

But in that doubling way.

The voice was coming from upstairs.

The doorknob gathered its reflected light back, went slack.

“We missed you,” Tina said, her footsteps crossing the kitchen again, to the carpet where I probably was.

“Missed you back,” the me up there said. The one that was up there now because I’d wanted to be a better husband, a better father.

It wasn’t me, though.

To prove it, I held my arm up, cut it longways, elbow to wrist, and deep, deeper than I meant to.

The slit yawned open like stretched rubber. Onto the white flan I was made of. The springy moist foam. The scentless paste.

I tried to swallow, couldn’t, and, because there was nothing else to do, I reached up beside my face, pulled the chain light off one last time, the click in the basement the exact sound of a carnival car on its long chain, clanking forward.

I angled my head up as I think I’d always known I would, waiting for a pair of lips to rush across the basement, touch mine.

This is the darkest part.

THE POPPING FIELDS by Robert Shearman

Sometimes the children get so disappointed they cry. But that doesn’t matter, isn’t that a good thing? Doesn’t that show they care? If the children cry, maybe they’re worth the extra effort. Joshua Shelton tells them to dry their eyes. He gives them a wink, but never a smile — he’s not good at smiles, that’s what Ruth’s good for, and right on cue there she is, doing her thing, bobbing her head and smiling away sweetly and looking so reassuring. Shelton will take from the distraught child’s hands the little creature he has made for them — something simple, like a rabbit, or a sausage dog, on lazy days it might even be a snake! He promises them something better. Something magical. He invites them into his caravan.

There’s nothing magical about the caravan, but it’s clean at least. Ruth is good at keeping things clean, she’ll have made the beds and tidied away all the breakfast things. At this stage the child ought to have stopped crying, and if it hasn’t Shelton gets impatient; if they can’t turn off the waterworks then how can they be expected to focus? They’re no use at all, he has to get rid of them fast. Maybe he’ll do them another rabbit, just for show he’ll give it bigger ears. Fair exchange, no robbery, then they’re out of the caravan, gone. But if the child shuts up — and the child usually does shut up — then the child can help let Shelton’s true skills out.

He’ll suggest they sit down. There’s really nowhere for the children to sit except on the bed, but he stands far away so they don’t feel crowded. He says that the first animal he made them wasn’t good enough, and that they were quite right to cry, if he had ever been given something so feeble he would have cried too. A rabbit, anyone can make a rabbit. Their mummies and daddies can make rabbits. The child itself could make a rabbit, if only it puts its mind to it — yes, you could! So what animal would you really like? In your heart of hearts, deep down, what do you most want to see?

A giraffe, the child might say. Or an elephant. Shelton knows that the child will have never seen a giraffe or an elephant, not for real, not even in books. The children who come are poor, they’ve never been to the city zoos, they may never even have gone to a library. The little pleasures they can expect from life are the circuses that visit the common ground, and these circuses are not the sort that can afford animals — a few clowns, the odd tumbler or two, but never a creature from the wild. A giraffe, the children will say, and they might know enough that it has a long neck — or an elephant, perhaps they’ve heard there’s a huge nose it can swish about. Shelton will give them an animal with a long neck or a trunk, that’s fine — but the rest is up to them. The rest they can work on together.