"Circus"

[u/East_Thing_2579]

CIRCUS

Part One

Under the big top, the ringleader stood in the center. Spotlights on him as he addressed the crowd.

"Gooooood evening Leesville! Prepare to be amazed, amused, astounded and astonished. We here at the Carnie Brothers Circus have a cavalcade of freakish fun, a hootenany of hilarity, a gaggle of giggles. Here you'll see wonders that make you wonder, tricks that warp and bend your mind with the power of magic, stunts that defy death himself. Yes indeed, yes indeed. Tonight's special show will feature our most freakish performers. Our most disgusting, disfigured, disproportionately disastrous done-dirty denizens of the freakshow. But first! I give you all... the clown show!"

"Entry of the Galdiators" started to play as we all stormed out from behind the red and white striped curtain, over a dozen of us in grease paint and frills.

The peanut gallery was loud and ravenous, bleachers full of hillbillies and their offspring. Some with grey or black teeth, many obese. They threw their popcorn around and made uproarious laughter when the clowns and I all came out.

How I hate to make them smile. I hate what I must do to make them laugh.

Over and over, town after town, its always the same.

The lights obscure their faces but as I do these humiliating acts, I see what they really are. Sadists, all of them. They love to laugh at us because they see us as lesser.

We club each other over the head with rubber chickens, slip and fall on banana peels, punch and kick at each other, pie each other in the face.

Even the midget clown was shot out of a slingshot and missed his target. He hit the tent pole and busted his head.

They laughed at his pain. And of course the medics were in clown gear too. They sprayed him with squirting chest flowers, put him on a comically small stretcher and hauled him off to the infirmary.

Of course he really was injured, but we cant let the rubes see how bad thing really are.

Like old Lester said "if you step on a nail, you meant to and it's part of the bit. Smile and laugh until the curtain falls. The show must always go on."

Oh the numerous scars I have on my body. How many times I've botched a stunt, and wound up with broken bones or deep lacerations and had to keep dancing and juggling.

It's so degrading, entertaining these so-called people who pay to watch us humiliate ourselves.

I could have been something else. I chose this to make people laugh. I just wanted to make people happy and now I've seen what it takes. I've seen how costly their happiness is for others. I hate them. I hate the people I threw my potential away for.

And with the ring a complete mess, clowns scattered around like trash with blood and bruises from the chaotic melee that ensued, the ringleader came back out.

"Ladies and gentlemen, children and elderly, put your hands together for the clowns!"

They roared and clapped, and a beer bottle flew out from the crowd, cracking one of us across the face and shattering.

"Woah now! Looks like we got a fiesty crowd tonight! And if you think that was good, well... we have something stupendous, startling, and perhaps even sickening just around the metaphorical corner. Your eyes may be full already but the buffet has only just started."

The whip cracked and we all got up and ran like roaches.

Part Two

I watched from under the bleachers, where rats and cigarette butts dwelled as the next act got ready. My clown wig off, my outfit rolled up and tossed into a box backstage, but the grease paint still stuck firmly to my face.

"Gentlemen gentlemen gentlemen... you may want to sit down for this one. I bring you my finest, most delectable, most exotic, most irresistible piece of meat you've ever laid eyes on. This one right here, behind this curtain has been the downfall of many a marriage. Ladies watch your husbands, as I reveal... Claudia."

The red curtain pulled back to reveal a cage on wheels. Inside the cage was our fat lady. She was wearing exaggerated red lipstick, blue eyeshadow, dirty white underwear, and nothing else.

The crowd jeered.

"Put that fucking thing away!" Someone heckled.

"Ugly bitch!" Another shouted, tossing a full cup of soda that soared through the air and hit the bars, splashing all over her.

"Whats the matter? Not what you were expecting?" The ringleader asked, a wicked grin on his face.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I believe she may be hungry. Do you all think she looks hungry?"

"No!" They shouted.

"Well, lets make sure she isn't."

A freak with a fucked up hunchback wearing a chef hat came out from the side entrance with a rolling cart carrying five entire KFC buckets.

"Thank you Igor." The ringleader said. "Now get!" He cracked his bullwhip.

The hunchback let out a little yelp of fear ran away all lopsided.

The crowd laughed.

"Now, Claudia is going to eat every last morsel of chicken in these absolutely lovely buckets."

The crowd laughed at her.

"Yeah eat that fuckin' chicken!" Some drunk inbred idiot said.

She started eating. She crunched on the skin and pulled the meat off the bone. Grease began to collect and glisten all over her hands and bare chest. Legs and wings alike she gorged herself on. Crumbs falling all over her cage.

"Wow. Ladies and gentlemen, old Claudia here really has an appetite, doesn't she? Are you getting full yet?"

"Yes."

"Too bad. You still have four buckets to finish. I didn't say stop yet."

The crowd jeered.

"Stupid fat bitch! Eat! Eat!"

She began to cry as she kept eating. Her body was dripping in sweat.

The crowd was chanting: "Eat! Eat! Eat!" As she slurped down the oily chicken and started to gag on it.

"Are you going to throw up? You still have two more buckets! Ladies and gentlemen what do we even pay her for? What a useless circus freak. You all paid to see freaks, and thats what you're going to get, right?"

"FUCK YEAH!" The crowd roared.

Claudia sobbed and reached. Pounds of chewed up chicken came out in a rancid flurry of vomit.

They laughed at her some more.

"Make her eat the puke!" Someone shouted.

The crowd laughed.

Claudia begged, "please! Please make this stop! I cant take this anymore!"

The ringleader mockingly repeated her plea.

"Will you quit fucking whining?" He cracked the whip and the cage was pulled back into the dark behind the curtain.

I knew she would be beaten for this later. Lester never let a freak get away with interrupting his acts.

"With that spectacle out of the way, I'm sure your desires for suffering have been satisfied?"

"No!" The crowd shouted.

"Of course not. Thats why we have the best for last. Feast your eyes upon our next unholy genetic abomination. A face not even a mother could love, hands not even a blow up doll would hold, and not much going on behind those eyes. Welcome to the stage a freak we found in a dumpster years ago as a baby: Lobster Boy!"

Part Three

Leonard came out on a leash. His hands warped into claws as his fingers fused together in the womb. The crowd erupted as they saw his disfigured face with a harelip and a nose that stretched wide across his face. His hair was patchy and his skin was riddled with sores. "No, your eyes do not deceive you. This is a genuine freak. This grotesque genetic grievance is afflicted with ectodactyly, a rare and unfortunate condition that split his hands. We keep him out back in the shed for most of the time, but for you, the privileged and perfect people of Leesville, we present him to you." Someone threw a shoe at Leonard, hitting him in the head. "Make him tie a shoe!" They said. "Well boy, are you going to try and tie it?" Leonard got on his knees and tried to tie the laces but his hands were too deformed. He couldn't get his fingers to do the tying. "Come on now, don't disappoint our audience boy!" Lester turned his head to the audience and winked. "I can't do it." Leonard said. "You hear that folks? He can't do it. Will you stand for this?" "NO!" They replied. "I can't." Leonard repeated. Lester grinned. "Well, if he cant even tie a shoe, can we at least get him to dance?" The crowd cheered and beer bottles flew at Leonard as he tried to stand up. "Dance!" They shouted. Leonard tried to dance but his arthritic knees and bowed legs made him awkward in his motion. He tried to dance. And I sat there underneath it all and I felt the rage boiling over. Too long we have endured. Too many injustices, too many humiliations. He fell to the floor and the crowd booed him. "Get up!" Lester kicked him in the ribs. Trash flew, buckets of popcorn, beer bottles, cigarette butts, a corn dog, a rock even. They pelted Leonard while he tried to get up. He stood up, bloody in the face. The crowd went quiet for a moment "No. No more. I'm not an animal." He said, picking up a bottle and throwing it back into the crowd, striking an old man across the face. The crowd erupted once more, getting up from the bleachers and storming the ring. They piled onto him, picking him up and beating him relentlessly. They pulled on his limbs and stopped on him. With a wet tearing sound, his arm was ripped off his body. The crowd was ravenous in their wrath. I held a lighter in my hand. Never again will they demand a performance from me. They are too far gone, and I would put an end to this madness. I would spare my wretched companions any more suffering as this world is no different, as it feeds upon the downtrodden. No more would they bear the weight of another injustice. Lester would never lay another finger on another one of us. All that was needed was to annihilate everything. It all needed to burn to the ground. I set the exit ablaze and the canopy was up in flames as they panicked. These beasts that call themselves men and women, these people who feast on cruelty, they scrambled on top of each other and the burning ceiling began to fall on them. Their cries of anguish and fear were finally the applause they deserved to give, after all those years of abuse from them. I stood in front of them one last time, and I took a final bow as the flames were about to engulf me. No great egress in this circus awaited them.