Utopian Circus

by C. Sean McGee

Chapter 22

  On they rushed, kicking away with their feet; slipping on the wet moss that strangled the rock’s edges, falling forwards onto the tips of their fingers and diving forwards into their next stride.

  They rushed like they had never rushed before for on their trail were two foul beasts, thirsted by the swollen scent of aboding fear that expanded in their lungs, stretched out in their every breath and dripped from the pores of their skin, onto the cold concrete floor below.

  Eve had led out of the wooden box as a lever was pulled and an end slid open. The boars were only meters from devouring before they took flight; she with Donal almost under her arms, out into the open corridors that weaved in many directions; a matrix of tunnels that could lead anywhere and nowhere.

  They could hear in the background, the sound of savage dogs growling and barking in some joyous canine fashion. But that wasn’t the sound that spurred her spirit of chase. What edged her further form her own shadow and into every new bound was a hideous snarling like the sound a hungry drain makes as it guzzles the last clumps of water and air; hideous snarling, repugnant gurgling and then the sound of hooves, clasping against the cold concrete.

  All of them together made a sound that resonated in her ears, much like the loading of live rounds into an empty chamber; the sound of approaching incident. And it drove her heart into every step pounding against the cold concrete. It tightened her fingers around the young boy; making him a cumbersome but necessary appendage to her own body. And it felt like an umbilical force that was attached to her belly; pulling her out of danger and into the arms of mother.

  On they rushed, the boars stampeding behind them; their bulky frames causing them to hurtle over one another, slipping on the tight turns and sliding head strong into concrete barriers and solid steel framing.

  Their bones cracked and thudded as their humungous frames smashed against the walls, but it did nothing to rattle their senses with the beasts clambering back to their upright and throwing themselves head first into growing momentum; driven by the fear from the two humans determining the chase.

  “What now?” asked Ruff.

  “Well, for them it could be regarded as chance but we know too well that the regard is one of choice,” said The Bitch Queen.

  “Is there a way out?” he asked.

  “There’s always a way out, you just have to imagine what it could be and then make it so,” she said.

  “What do I have to do to stop the hunt?” Ruff asked.

  “Come with me, I want to show you something,” she said.

  “What about my human friends?” Ruff asked.

  “The boars will tire soon. If their minds are bright then they will see in the dark. My beloved pets can run and bite and very little else. We have time. Now, will you come with me?” she asked.

  Hesitation would serve him nearly as well as a conscious mind offered good counsel, so he abated his expatiated fear mongering and accepted her invitation, thinking only that the best vice might be to play according to her rhythm and be not hasty in finding a way out of this mess for his friends and for himself and then, when everything fell in line, he could look at how to silence this infernal conscious racket.

  “I want to show you something dear to me. You know my hounds love and worship me, yes? I want to show you my true pets” she said as they exited the royal guard and they walked; just him and her, down a winding corridor getting farther from the dire need of his friends until eventually, the roar of vicious boars existed only as a silent movie playing in his conscious mind.

  When they entered her chambers, Ruff was caught with a sense of despise, greater than he already had for The Bitch Queen. Curled on the floor; with metal collars clamped around their necks and great weighted chains running from their collars to the walls where they were bolted into place, were several small children.

  All human.

  All imprisoned.

  Like animals.

  “They are my pets. Aren’t they just adorable? Do keep your distance, though; they have a tendency to bite. Except for this one here” she said leading Ruff over to a small girl who sat crouched on the floor with her big sad eyes leading them both towards her tender touch as The Bitch Queen stood with her back to the girl, appreciating with a low gruff, the scratching of nails against her dry skin.

  “What do you want with them? This is not where they belong? This is not where a hound belongs. This is not even a kingdom. It’s a sewer” said Ruff.

  “If they repeat, they will remember if they remember they will learn and if they learn then they can be domesticated,” said The Bitch Queen.

  As she spoke, the young girl buried her face into the small whiny dog’s fur and scratched heartily at her skin.

  “Look at it. It forgets its binds when it gives itself to my satisfaction. It is learning. These others,” she said, pointing her snout to the far end of the room where the other human children circled together on the floor; their eyes conniving and feral. “They just need more discipline. Beat them and they will learn. All things learn from the fear of reprisal. Better to repeat an outcome of nothing than to subscribe to the repetition of austere castigation. They are still learning; disobedient ugly little creatures they are. I imagine they would not grow much larger” she said.

  “Humans? These are just puppies. They will grow you out of your kingdom. They mature awfully slowly but then again, each and every one of them will outlive you, should nature attend to their pickings of course” Ruff said.

  “Was this how you spent your obedient past, tied to domestication in beckon of a second’s adoration? They love me and those that do not have just to first fear me then accept me as one and all; as their everything, and then when my will is not to punish or to hurt them, they will love me. Fear and love. What a joyous combination. It is a snake with a head for a tail, each with their own particular venom. This one here, it loves me wholly. I need not extend my cruelty to its learning. Its devotion is scabbed and blistered on its knees. Look how it presses itself against my coat” said The Bitch Queen.

  “This is a condition of fear,” he said.

  “Fear creates the condition for love. It is the canvas on which the artist paints. It is the sphere onto which the Earth rotates. It is what the last day of winter gives unto the first day of spring. It is the black of which without, white would not be seen. It is the tragedy that lends to the warmth of compassion. This human is saved. I am its god” she said.

  “And there we have it, the colour of your fear” Ruff said.

  “I have no fear” she yelled.

  “If that is true then by all accounts you have nothing to love and if that be the case, why don’t you walk away now. Let these creatures be. If you fear nothing then you have nothing to fear by letting them go” Ruff said.

  “She needs them” spoke a voice in the distance.

  From out of the shadow came a small but darkly and intriguing figure draped in a shadowy coat. It looked as if a void in space were walking through the room, gathering the light and swirling into its intriguing mass.

  The Bitch Queen turned; startled.

  “This is none of your concern. Return to your shadow” she said to The Intriguing Figure.

  “She needs them to love her so that their blood can be pure and of light when she cuts their throats and drains them like a gash in the heavens. But they have stopped loving her. For the human has changed. It is without reason. It is without heart” said The Intriguing Figure.

  “Ignore the shadow. It speaks in riddles and metaphor. It’s not to be taken literally” she said, trying to draw Ruff’s attention back to her quickly fading reverence.

  “Show him the salon,” it said.

  “What is that?” asked Ruff, looking direct to The Bitch Queen who now was looking every inch of her height as a green curtain was slowly being pulled.

  Behind the intriguing figure illuminated a white room. The Bitch Queen had worry in her eyes as Ruff filled his with courage and walked past he
r, leaving her to the fancy of her human pet. The Intriguing Figure stayed motionless and silent as Ruff passed it and entered the sterile room, immediately overcome with shock.

  In its centre sat a large white porcelain tub with a golden faucet and golden feet where, tied around the golden faucet, was a golden chain that at its end held a golden plug that was blocking a golden drain.

  Ruff had never cared for the shimmer of gold or silver or anything at all that would frighten him into his own reflection, the instance of immediate threat that stalks on glass as the darkness upon his feet under a heavy sun.

  But now; as he floated his conscious mind, feeling detached from the tips of his paws and every nerve that brushed against the earth, he found himself more than drawn to its shine but captivated by the depth of his own reflection as his golden eyes stared back at him in appreciation.

  The Intriguing Figure slipped into the light and took with it the attention of Ruff, moving past him to the back of the room and waiting by a tiny lever, staring straight at the matted little dog and though its eyes stayed still and invisible under the blanket of void that encapsulated its shape, he could feel its stare peeling him like a soiled bandage from the glamour of his imagined self.

  “Be considerate when in the attendance of your own reflection for you might just be caught by yourself looking back?” said The Intriguing Figure.

  Ruff pulled his attention away from the porcelain tub and its golden fittings and eyed instead the lever that protruded from the white tiled wall upon where the black void rested its form. As he did, The Bitch Queen screamed in dissention.

  “You will not pull that lever” she screamed.

  “What’s behind that wall,” asked Ruff in a demanding tone.

  His mind felt sharp and direct as if he had jumped into the controls or somehow wired his senses so that his consciousness was no longer disconnected but an avid extension of his instincts; a visceral director governed by his own conscious prevalence of right and wrong.

  He felt as if he could push through the wall with his thoughts alone and he raced forwards and bit upon the handle, tearing the lever downwards and stood back in shock at the horror which took to the stage.

  Behind the wall was another room where rusted chains that held rusted hooks that pierced through clumps of human flesh, hanged from the roof in scores and on the floor; bound and gagged and tied by rusted chains to fittings in the walls, were several young children whose skin was pale; whiter than a polar storm, and whose eyes looked not at, through or against anything.

  They seemed to just be resting against an air of indifference with no blood left in their veins to sail the will to survive, from an idea in their minds to the fight in their heart or to the chase at their feet.

  They looked as if they were already dead, but Ruff could see that they hadn’t reached this peace, not yet, as one of the humans, a small boy, soiled himself as he saw; in his lethargic sight, the viscous snarl of the small Chihuahua, the one who made them hurt.

  “Let them go” screamed Ruff, turning his head to The Bitch Queen.

  “What are you doing?” yelled The Bitch Queen to The Intriguing Figure.

  “Tell him why you keep the humans and why you only prefer the youngest. Tell him. You are a queen after all, what have you to fear of a domesticated canine? Tell him about how you bathe in their blood” said The Intriguing Figure.

  Rage swelled inside Ruff as he aborted his rationale, his mind afire with the desire to devour that tiny little bitch.

  “I am The Bitch Queen. This is my kingdom. How dare you try to judge me and my rule” she yelled waveringly, her voice more impotent than armed which only served to fuel the inferno in Ruff’s conscious mind.

  “She needs to bathe in their blood to keep herself at the breast of youth,” said The Intriguing Figure.

  One of the children; the small boy in a pool of his own urine with his tiny veins spitting the last drips of his blood out of his emaciated body, lifted one of his hands and reached pathetically out to the small matted dog. He lifted his listless stare and mouthed the word help.

  “Help me,” he said, his voice spluttering like an old engine choking on the last drops of fuel and Ruff the dog, understood exactly what he meant.