Carnival Dream.

Monday, 9 July 2007

We sip sweet cold coffee in the show-ground.

You and I sit on a bench where there is sugar in the air and the whine of the sideshow. The ground breathes, warm and grassy on our legs. Distantly, the calliope warbles on.

A small elephant trundles by, led by a clown whose wig is stuffed under his arm, he smokes a clove cigarette and his brown skin peeks through the flaking white paint on his face.

A little boy chokes over by the fig tree and people stop to gather round.

His mother screams and a man with big hands smacks him on the back.

Some obtuse piece of food flies free and he gasps a ragged breath in through his tiny mouth.

You look up at the sky, golden flames of hair tumble further down the bumpy path of your spine.

You close your eyes breathe in this carnival air. A zephyr whispers to us about the falling dusk and paints a picture of the show-ground that makes me close my eyes as well - sugar, popcorn, dirt, cinnamon, coffee beans and hot-dogs, turf and horse shit, sulphur from the fireworks and the warm close smell of human bodies - a thousand different smells, a hundred sinful shadows.

A little man pushes a cart full of hay and stops by our bench. He has one green eye, the other is white and dull like a tumbled stone. Above this eye an old scar divides his forehead, below it, his cheek is puckered.

He looks at you side on, his green-eye-side to you, and places a paper cup full of John quills at your feet. He gives me a little nod and pushes the cart along the way.

< Previous Next >