Utopian Circus
Page 28
Chapter 27
“Just as I promised, my word to be whole, I’ll wake of the man from the pit of his soul. The Famine hath made, its bed in his mind, but I’ll do what I can to undo any bind and return him to being, bring sight to his eye but should he come between us, I’ll will him to die. Don’t get me wrong and think that I lie, if he dares to take you from me… I’ll cut his fucking throat out, do you understand me sweet little girl?” screamed The Creepy Old Man.
Safrine panicked and nodded her head. His anger scared her, but he stopped immediately and was smiling and holding out his hand again. Safrine took his hand and they walked into the stall where The Woman and The Behemoth lay unconscious on the ground.
The Creep Old Man crept over to where The Behemoth lay and leaned down to his ear and whispered something. As he did, the long grey hairs sticking out of the old man’s ears whistled as a light breeze washed over them.
The long grey ear hairs seemed to swim in the breeze and Safrine watched in a tired gaze, almost mystified by the way they seemed to orchestrate the movement of the wind.
The Creepy Old Man then leaned down to The Behemoth’s mouth and pressed his lips against his while pressing one hand firmly into the dusted earth.
Safrine felt a slight tremor in the ground and a gust of air rushed from nowhere into the stall and down into the throat of The Behemoth as The Creepy Old Man released his lips from his peculiar kiss.
“What happened?” said The Behemoth waking to shake off imaginary rats from his body, the image that had plagued him seconds before he fell into Famine.
“You fell asleep. My friend here helped you. He helped us. We have to bring him with us. Can we?” she said, like a child willing their father to take home an ill puppy.
“Help me with The Woman,” said The Behemoth, lifting himself up and seeing in another stall just opposite, a wheel barrow, something they could use to carry The Woman the rest of their journey.
As The Creepy Old Man and Safrine lifted The Woman’s heavy body, The Behemoth cleaned the old wheelbarrow of its borrowed tenants; some old clothes, measuring tape and a puzzle box; a coloured cube, with all its sides complete, sitting on top of the pile. The Behemoth threw the coloured cube to the earth with the rest of the things and helped to ease The Woman’s body down so they could make their way.
“How long has it been night?” The Behemoth asked.
“How long is forever?” replied Safrine jokingly; smiling at The Creepy Old Man who walked along besides her, holding her hand.
The three walked with The Woman unconscious in the wheelbarrow out of the line of stalls and under a blanket of night, they headed in the direction they had been heading all along; where it was that the young girl’s feet would take them; on the trail of her brother and in turn of The Old Drunk Bastard’s boat and onwards towards New Utopia.
“Are we heading in the right direction?” asked The Behemoth.
The Creepy Old Man squeezed Safrine’s hand tightly.
“Yes,” she said.
The Behemoth looked over at The Creepy Old Man and his senses engaged him. He watched the way the old man leered over her and skipped along beside her and he wanted so much to tear the sick old man in two, but the girl seemed alert and manageable and as long as she got him to where needed to be, nothing was so foul as couldn’t be condoned or ignored.
As the group walked along the dusted path, they left behind the sideshow delusion and under an oddly black night; without a single star in the sky, they eventually came upon a row of houses; neat little brick houses with little white fences and small ceramic caricatures occupying the lawn.
They had reached suburbia, the long sprawl of unkempt idealism of what had become a droughted appendage that had only existed as the extent of industrial riches, a need born of The Industry’s Populous Manifesto and its mechanized factorial ease in human production.
“Do you know them?” said Safrine to her new friend, pointing to the near distance where a large group of children gathered with fire in their hands and hate in their chant.
“Of them I do not and it wills me to say that the path we are on may have led us astray. Just as the day hath divorced of the sun, I fear our foul end might have justly begun” sang The Creepy Old Man.
“Steady yourselves,” said The Behemoth, placing the wheel barrow gently on the ground, slowing his movement, thinking in strategy, calculating his odds.
The gang of young children, all screaming obscenities into the night, flanked into what looked like a tidal wave, reaching from the farthest left to the furthest right, from where they couldn’t imagine, to the immediacy of their sight.
“As wise is to lore, the child is to war” sang The Creepy Old Man.
“What do we do?” asked Safrine, squeezing the old man’s hand but looking to the much larger Behemoth who stood staunch and brave.
“We fight,” he said.
“How?” she asked.
“Do you want to die” asked The Behemoth.
“No,” said Safrine.
“Let that be your motivation,” said The Behemoth.
One of the children stepped forward from the wall and let out a shriek into the night, so loud that even The Woman; in her Famined state, cringed unsettlingly.
“Be At War?” said The Behemoth.
Under a blanket of fire, the children roared and dived onto their front feet and ran forwards with war in their hearts. Safrine let go of the old man’s hand and clenched her fists. The Creepy Old Man clenched his own. The Behemoth stampeded into the face of the coming violence, the others followed.