Carousel

 

A darkening evening glows brighter by the minute: flickering, twirling, enticing–cloudy bulbs of red and white blur with a passing glance. Popcorn-littered, foot-smoothed paths are in season; and children come through with not enough money to spend on all the once-in-a-lifetime attractions. Ferris wheels lift and rotate first time lovers with anxious, sweaty palms and a secret fear of heights. Spinny rides sicken supportive parents. And carneys swear by their balloon-popping, block-knocking games of fixed chance, impervious to skill. 

One glamorous halo stands out, though it sits lowest of all, occupied by galloping creatures and a classic poppy waltz–on repeat to drive ticket-takers and machine-operators into a Victorian madness. Circus imagery provides nostalgia to the fresh-baked children of this 21st century–yet to create for themselves a sense of time or memory. 

There is no flashing here, rows of golden orbs, vermilion dots glow; they are steadier, circling perchance, dimmer and brighter once again. There is a cardinal-red throughout, a neon fluidity, a slow starting, steady paced, then softening sway of ballroom etiquette up-kept by glittered creatures of dream-state design. Entry is a single “ADMIT ONE” ticket–really a bargain for such a wondrous ride. The children would give fifty of those pink slips of precious paper for a go on. Anticipating a dip into the world of real magic, the children rip a ticket from their sacred and safe-kept strain, making that perfect sound: it is a trail of mini firecrackers, safe for children, soft on the ears and fingers–fingers which hold tighter the greasy-paper than mother’s reddening index. 

Drooping ropes of chain direct them: excited minds through the excited line. In a precarious string of jolts, sons, daughters, the undiscovered, release their parents’ hands with bravery in distraction and skip through a field of green-for-now grass. It is all so small–all so fragile. A crowd of tiny sneakers jump onto the platform and race towards their animal of choice–tunnel vision. Claim your ride before Billy spots the creature’s golden saddle. Some creatures sparkle white with yellow accents and a magnificently blue mane to match its tail while others are complimented by pretty pinks and purples–mares and stallions, fillys and colts who’ve run through clouds of dazzling dyes, been enchanted by sprinkles of regal dust. 

With each mount a rider, the circus’s ringmaster announces the arrival of their departure. And the machine begins to whirr. Warming up with a quarter-speed revolution, the platform steadies itself in preparation for an even pace. Now, the children and animals are ready. All permanently denied entry to the other-world, parents wave goodbye from behind bubblegum-speckled guard rails. The children wave back, though preoccupied with their noble steeds and their gaining speed. A world falls behind…

Visions of carnival crowds whizz past on the merry-go-round. The horns and strings, the music! It rides through the air, mystifying the ride, carrying the children's moods along. The rotating ring of majestic horses bob like dolphins through a sea of enchantment–and circus colors speed by, disappearing behind in alluring stripes of tangible bliss. Joy spreads ‘cross the young faces with squints and giggles and stomachs lighter than air. Trying on some good-humored elegance, the children stiffen their backs and raise their necks, fixing uncouth posture to respect the occasion. Boys and girls mature in this bobbing dance to sirs and dames prettied head to toe in the finest sovereign dress, unrealistic for jockeys of such speed, necessary in the minds of once-young children. The poles which connect the mammals to realistic mechanisms unravel their golden ribbon to leave the animals free with the children in their courtly care. A plain runs beneath the galloping hooves, patterned with pastels rivaling Suess’s best strokes. Oh, the places they’ll go…

A sun, orange, setting across the newfound sky, deflates. And this world fades from their youthful minds: blue-grey spreads ‘cross their eyes, neons flash like dots of far-off fireworks in a holiday sky, manes of glitter dance and glimmer like festival sparklers for one final, sputtering second.

The wick is eaten up; elegance dissolves. The strings go taut, shoot the music to an atonal catastrophe.

Recently, the children were bobbing through in a mirage of color and bliss; now, they are hidden along with their magnificence under the cover of darkness–with no parents: no comforter. It is a void like the bottom of space; that place you reach in mid-winter dreams; that feeling achieved by disobeying benevolent authority. Smashing, striking, silencing, the scales of a devilish key possess the youthful souls. Their eyes paralyzed forward to stare into their own shadowed solitude. Once upon a time, grief and loneliness were characters in a story. Scared dreamers being thrown through a daunting darkness, they begin to slow, against their will. If something is chasing, as is always the case in this sort of black, it will surely catch up soon. There are no limbs or torsos in the mind’s reach–only widening, glossy eyes at the mercy of this world.

It won’t keep dark for now. The soft-lit doorway reaches its saving fingers down the last few steps. Dim, neon glows slowly relight. Vague outlines of circus tents and food trucks stroll by amidst a sinister dusk. Yellow, revolving sources of food-safe warmth reignite the comfort of personability. They pray that life will restore, and seem predictable once again. Mightily unsteady, the carousel creatures fade back in with the children’s limbs and normal dress. Reality folds back together in the fragile minds; but structureless music keeps on. 

All in a dizzy state of tears and sweat, the children look to their right with unsung anxiety. ‘Round the next bend should be coming mother and father to console the tortured. Past the next left turn, no. The next, no. No. No. No parents appear in the crowd. We’ve passed the elephant ears five times. White knuckles bracing the guard rails connect to fingerless gloves, to hands and arms of neon-striped circus attire. Mocking, dolled-up faces of carneys, each in a fit of unceasing amusement, strangle the bubblegum-speckled fence. It shakes. The ride slows. It falls. The ride stops. 

An ear-splitting whistle slits through the teeth of each glowing bystander. It reverberates through the festival-grounds. The children begin to scream; their underdeveloped ragdolls are bucked into dewy grass. The horses match their scream, tearing themselves from golden rods: vertical poles always kept wilderness in that dizzy line. Sketched sharp and chaotic against an otherwise silently still night, the carneys hoop, holler, screech, chant; the animals leap for the jockeys abandoned. 

Neighs mix with the gnashing of teeth against hairless skin. Dense rows of rectangular bone grind through limbs of innocent rubber. Clothes are ripped to disregarded shreds. Sealed for freshness, gelatinous caves of viscera are torn open and consumed. The steeds dig greedily in, burying their faces in a gummy stew of quickly-cooling body heat. Faces get the worst: eyes drained, poor hairstyles ripped and chewed, features muddled into the patternless mess of trough-held feed. Inky streams of velvet drip from glitter and blood spackled manes.

Ant-level, festival grounds bear a torturous sight. The view from above is clouded but grizzly: a mechanical circus tent sits as an unmoving ring, an iris for this scene; the field around stages hectic motion, plays heavy and lessening screams; guard rails no longer trap. Hooves muddle the flesh of dreamers into bloody grass. They prance through the carnage, kicking scraps behind. Carneys run off after the well-fed beasts do the same; through a dead-empty festival they gallop, ‘way from a carousel which captivated. The imagination is scariest of all.