Carnival of Tears

It wasn’t run down like some traveling carnivals, but it did have the worn-in, well attended appearance of a long standing much traveled one.

The carnival folk varied from the tradition leery folk to the (also) traditional warm and welcoming sorts. It set up in the shape of a teardrop, with the pointed end being the way into the carnival proper. To either side of this sat ticket and information booths.

People flocked to it no matter where it went. It boasted games, food, drink, rides, fortune tellers, a big top – and something many carnivals long since ceased to offer. The Freak Show.

Despite its worn well used appearance it had a following. People returned each year to see what differences may have come along, and to visit with “old friends” among the staff. People rarely left (short of death) when they joined. Speaking of death – it wasn’t common in this carnival.

The dust and dirt seemed to disappear at night; it became something else entirely. It became a glowing jewel of colors and lights, a place and a way to leave oneself without the risk. Laughter paved the dirt paths and fanned boardwalks, while softer whispers of love and other things twined among the fair goers with abandon.

I spent my nights wandering among those who chose to visit, and most of the time – we turned the places we visited into ghost towns at night. We never sold any alcohol because the heady beats, brilliant colors, the dancers, the workers mixed in the crowd, the ones working the attractions – we didn’t need to.

We drew them like moths to the flame, and we brought them into our world. In the nighttime, at a carnival, we could be free. Because no one ever believed “the act” was more than trick shows, smoke and mirrors, a good story, or simply a carefully worked illusion.

Let me take you there. Drift into the tent of the “freaks” with me. The pale dark-eyed vampire, the skinny tall “bearded lady”. The woman with the shimmering aurora borealis butterfly wings, the woman summoning fire and dancing in it as if it is mere air….

They are all real.

The storyteller in his small amphitheater (his name is Tennyson, by the way) who tells stories so real you’d swear (only in that night, of course) that you could see phantasms of the stories he weaves, feel the feelings of those he spoke of.

Don’t mind the girl with the pale-blue blind eyes, she’s no trouble, but if you do wish to follow her, she’ll lead you to the fortune teller. No charlatan, no lies fall from her lips, but no one wants to hear the dire predictions that are a part of life. So she’ll sugar coat it for them all in love and lust and money; and watch as they leave, saddened that no warning can save you.

The workers too are most often magic. Most are fae, many werewolves and mages, and a few are even other things entirely.

People never see this, though. To them we are all just people. Ragged until the night comes and we entrance and enthrall, the magic more than simply good showmanship.

And we do it because we must. I walk among them to check that things are alright.

No one is being disturbed. No one is talking in dark whispers, dreaming the dark things as they are awake. None of these people – or even my own – are drifting in the dark wrapped in the darker shadows we guard.

I would be the first to know, and the first told, because this is my circus. All of the energy – the laughter, joy, fear, all these strong emotions are a feast for the fae.

But most of it doesn’t go to us. It’s meant for someone else.

They walk around and they seek the thrills, are dazzled and played. The fae give them a high like no drug they’ll ever find. They’ll wake in the morning and some of them will find things they’ll forever carry in silence in the dark, others will find only that they’re curiously giddy. Some simply feel content, or well rested, happy.

Never once do they consider what we may be hiding. Not only what we are, but the reason we never stay.

No one ever realizes what lurks in the dark, sleeping sometimes fitfully under the floors of the big top tent, the sounds of the crowds lulling her dreams, their emotions being used to keep her a prisoner.