Circus Comes to Town

The two faces lay, by the great big hall doors, one of them slowly swinging back and forth in the wind, it’s hinge groaning and creaking, as the wind roared and screamed. The air smelled dark and horror, not like the happy, bright, colorful lights the circus had promised when it came to town. One could almost hear the sounds of the circus, the elephants, trumpeting, the trumpets, neighing, the horses, chattering, the people. Could almost taste the excitement as people shuffled in, in this lazy town where nothing had happened. Could almost feel the rumbling the ground from the circus animals pacing and prowling, dancing, carousing, pillouting. Almost. Now darkness covered it, as it covered the whole town. A shadow spread across the sparse houses and huts, and it came from the circus tree. The tree they had planted when they came to town. The owner twirling his shining, oiled mustache as he smiled that trademark smile and said, it will even the scales of balance. Scales of balance. It sounded weird even then. Why had they not paid attention. Probably because he was a circus owner. He was supposed to be eccentric. That was his entire thing. Maybe they should have been cautious when they came to the circus one night, and it was all aflame, the animals watching as fire danced around their cages, lighting up their faces with moving shadows of red and flickering orange. When he had been shooting arrows in the sky and laughing a manic cackle. They had laughed it off, nervously at first, then the laughter turned real, this was all part of the show. Yet they could not forget the look in his eyes, whitened all the way through, roots of red worming around the edges. And then the darkness had slowly started to spread. The cackling had started to spread. It would always start the same way. Eyes red and sore, boils spreading across the skin. Cackles. Lots of laughter. They couldn't stop. Sometimes they couldn't breathe. The town became an endless circus of laughs, snorts, and giggles. At the center of it all was the circus the brown and red circus tent, a cone, watching over the home it had come to roost in. below it the tree, growing taller and faster than any tree had a right to. It would start the same way. One person would get it. It would spread to their family. They would become religious in visiting the circus. Magnetism. Moths attracted to the fatal sun. Waves enamored by the moon, tides bemoaning their distance from it. The cackles became a constant hum in the air. The tree grew taller and taller, and the cackling residents felt an odd foreboding as it neared the top of the tent. One night it ripped open through the top. The tear was felt throughout the town. The next morning, the animals were gone, the circus was gone. The town was empty. The tent remained. The cackles were in the air, but there was no more laughter.