Electric Velocipede 27
Page 16
No, being eaten was not the same as dissolving, she decided. Being eaten was an ending. Being eaten was death without rebirth. The clown couldn’t stand to watch any more. She went and visited some of the animals. She patted the backs of the cotton candy sheep and scratched the dark chocolate dancing bear behind his ears.
“Don’t be so sad,” said the juggler. “We are meant to be eaten.”
She had told the juggler that very thing this morning, that it was their destiny to be eaten. She had believed it. Because of her, everyone else in the carnival—the daredevil and the zebra, the acrobats and the cotton candy sheep—all of them were content to meet their fate, week in and week out, a never-ending carnival of death.
No, the clown decided, she wouldn’t do this any longer.
While the children were busy stuffing sheep into their mouths and watching the juggler toss flaming balls of sugar, the clown snuck to the edge of the carnival, intending to run away—but instead the magician spotted her. He snatched her up and stuffed her into his pocket, and kept her there until evening.
“I don’t want to do this any more,” she told him.
“I’m sorry, I truly am. But we have a party tomorrow, and I don’t have time to make another seed.” He dropped her into his cauldron and she melted away.
#
The clown woke angry. It was one thing to destroy her when she was willing, but the magician had thrown her in the cauldron even after she protested. Her gown reflected her mood—sugar burnt black with a dusting of granulated sugar sequins. Sour gummy animals replaced the fluffy cotton candy sheep, and dark chocolate elephants balanced on jawbreaker balls. The tents of the carnival were a shiny red, like wet blood, and the gingerbread daredevil wore a biker jacket of black licorice.
This time she would not tell the others of the joys of children’s laughter. She would warn them of the horror of being eaten, and instead of meeting their so-called destiny, they would work together and escape.
The clown was busy formulating her plans, and she did not notice that the magician was still awake until he came up behind her and snatched her away. He dropped her into a glass jar on the counter and sealed the lid. She watched from her prison as he poured out a batch of melted sugar and worked it into shape as it cooled. Before long, he had made a figure, a little over three inches tall.
It was her replacement, a handsome candy clown with pants of candied orange peel and sugar-rainbow suspenders. His face was molded into a dopey grin, and the clown knew that she would have loved him more than the gingerbread daredevil, if they had met when she had first been made. Now, though, all she felt when she looked at him was pity.
Over on the table, the carnival was waking, but she was not there to greet them. Instead, the magician spoke to them, telling them of the wonders that awaited them and reminding them that it was their destiny to be eaten. Then the magician loaded them up—the carnival and the angry clown—and took them to the party. He did not let the clown out of her jar until after the party had started.
She tried to warn the others. The animals were hopeless of course, for they understood so little of what was happening. The juggler and the bearded lady did not believe her—and why should they? The magician had been there when they woke, and she was just a clown who joined them at the party. She came too late to save them.
Her last hope was the gingerbread daredevil, who, she had to admit, looked quite striking in his licorice biker jacket. He listened to her carefully, and even claimed to believe her. But he wasn’t willing to stop the show and run away with her. Her plans of rebellion and escape were crushed. The others didn’t change their minds even as the children ripped the tops off the red-sugar tents. “It is our destiny,” they told her, and “What would we do if we left the carnival, anyway?”
Even without the others, the clown was determined to leave. She gathered up the saltwater-taffy cords from the bungee jumping ride and used them to climb down to the floor. She was sugar, and fragile, so she knew she wouldn’t live long, but at least—for the first time—her life was truly hers.
She wove around the children’s legs. The magician stood in the open doorway demanding to be paid despite delivering a dark and dismal failure of a carnival. His arguments escalated into shouts, and the clown slipped out the door just before it slammed shut in the magician’s face. He stormed off to his van without ever looking down, and finally the clown was free. With sunshine glinting off her shiny-sugar hair, she walked out into the chest-high grass of the birthday girl’s lawn and never looked back.
#
On the side of a dried up drainage ditch, on the edge of an otherwise ordinary suburban neighborhood, there is an odd sort of carnival. Instead of tents there are marshmallow mushrooms in assorted shapes and colors, and instead of performing animals there are caramel deer and birds made up of chocolate-covered pretzels. The animals are not trained, and wander through the carnival as they please. There are no daredevils or jugglers or bearded ladies.
But there is a clown. She is a peaceful clown, with white-sugar hair and a minty green dress. She knows that somewhere in the city the magician still makes carnivals to be eaten, and she wonders if someday that too-happy clown will come to his senses and make his escape. She knows her carnival is temporary, and it will melt next time it rains. But she also knows that she is a seed, and that she will not be eaten, and every time the sun dries out the puddles, her carnival will grow again.
THE END
Electric Velocipede 27 Contributor Bios
Megan Arkenberg is a Milwaukee native currently living and writing in California. Her work has appeared in Asimov’s, Lightspeed, Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of The Year, and dozens of other places. She procrastinates by editing the fantasy e-zine Mirror Dance.
Daniel Ausema officially denies any involvement in overthrowing regimes. He has, however, been a journalist and alternative educator and is now a stay-at-home dad, any of which might qualify. His work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Penumbra, and Three-Lobed Burning Eye, among many others, and he is the creator of the Spire City serial fiction project from Musa Publishing. He lives in Colorado, at the foot of the mountains.
Helena Bell is a writer living in Raleigh, NC. She is a graduate of the Clarion West Workshop and her fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Shimmer, and The Indiana Review.
Geoffrey W. Cole’s short fiction has appeared in such publications as Clarkesworld, Intergalactic Medicine Show, New Worlds, and Imaginarium 2012: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing. Geoff has degrees in biology and engineering. He lives in Vancouver, Canada, with his wonderful wife, baby, and giant dog, where he manages the region’s drinking water system. Please visit Geoff at www.geoffreywcole.com
Gillian Daniels’ poems and prose have been published in Flash Fiction Online, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Flying Higher: An Anthology of Superhero Poetry, and PodCastle. After attending the 2011 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Workshop, she moved from Cleveland, Ohio to the Boston area where she lives, works, sketches, and temp’d not-so-long-ago. She can be found on Twitter as @gilldaniels.
Thom Davidsohn opens boxes for a living.
Since 2008, Lisa L Hannett has had over 50 short stories appear in venues including Clarkesworld, Fantasy, Weird Tales, ChiZine, the Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror (2010, 2011 2012), and Imaginarium: Best Canadian Speculative Writing (2012 2013). She has won three Aurealis Awards, including Best Collection 2011 for her first book, Bluegrass Symphony, which was also nominated for a World Fantasy Award. You can find her online at http://lisahannett.com
and on Twitter @LisaLHannett
Nancy Hightower’s fiction and poetry has been published in Strange Horizons, Word Riot, storySouth, Gargoyle, Prick of the Spindle, and Bourbon Penn, among others. Her eco-fantasy, Elementarí Rising, just came out with Pink Narcissus Press. You can see more of her work at Nancyhightower.com
John Klima wonders how the hell you all got in here.
; Harry Markov is a writer, reviewer and columnist with a background in Marketing, SEO and social media. His taste for books leans towards weird and dangerous fiction. The morning cup of coffee and spreadsheets are his primary objects of worship. You can him mouthing off on Twitter at @HaralambiMarkov or at his blog The Alternative Typewriter
.
Megan Kurashige is a professional dancer and a writer. She and her sister, Shannon Kurashige, collaborate on wild and quixotic dance projects under the name Sharp Fine (http://www.sharpandfine.com
) in San Francisco. She attended the Clarion Writers’ Workshop at UCSD in 2008 where she learned that telling stories rocks her soul. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Unnatural Creatures, an anthology edited by Neil Gaiman and Maria Dahvana Headley, Electric Velocipede, Sybil’s Garage, and Strange Horizons. She has a blog (http://immobileexplorations.blogspot.com
) and is on Twitter @mkazoo
Sam J. Miller is a writer and a community organizer. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Shimmer, Nightmare Magazine, Strange Horizons, Icarus, The Minnesota Review, and The Rumpus, among others. He is a graduate of the 2012 Clarion Writer’s Workshop, and the co-editor of Horror After 9/11, an anthology published by the University of Texas Press. Visit him at www.samjmiller.com
Margaret Ronald is the author of Spiral Hunt, Wild Hunt, and Soul Hunt, as well as numerous short stories. Originally from rural Indiana, she now lives outside Boston. This story is dedicated to her daughter Johanna.
Katherine Mankiller lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with a bunch of cats. Her short fiction has appeared in Electric Velocipede, Escape Pod, and ChiZine. When she’s not writing, she’s performing amazing feats of Geek-Fu. Over the years, she’s asked that her business cards read everything from “Alpha Bitch” through “Queen of Awesomeness” to “Zen Master”–to no avail. Her greatest ambition is to rule the world.
Caroline M. Yoachim is a writer and photographer living in Seattle, Washington. She is a graduate of the Clarion West writers workshop and was nominated for a Nebula Award for her novelette, “Stone Wall Truth.” Her fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Lightspeed, Daily Science Fiction, and Interzone, among other places. For more about Caroline, check out her website at http://carolineyoachim.com