Freak Show

It still looked the same, after all these years. True, the paint was
chipped and peeling, the lights dimmed and curtains motheaten, but the
feeling is still here.
I could still see the crowds roaring and jeering at the men and women
who had stood where I do now. They performed their acts as animals,
treated as such, as cheery circus music piped from the large rusty
organ, painted in such flamboyant colours, creating a kind of high as I
had watched the characters dance merrily around it.

The Freaks.

We were told to call them that. We were told they weren't human, but
animals. Anyone who disagreed would have to join them, we were told.
But the feeling was not created from this.

The feeling was from the ringmaster. A short man. Grinning from his
podium in an eerie, unnatural way. Unnerving. Telling us not to alarm
the freaks. No shouting, clapping or booing. And the way he glared
whilst saying it made sure we didn't.

Unnerving. Then and now.

I remember the walrus man. I remember the woman without eyes. I
remember them all.

And I remember that night.

I sit on the sawdusty yellow stage. Footprints still fresh in it from
that night. Staring round at the rows of seats, stacked around the
stage. Maybe two thousand people could have sat there every
night.

But that last night- nobody came but me.

Because they'd been shut down. Removed. Gone. Except for one man- the
ringmaster. He'd sat where I sit now- crying. I'd walked in. He was
there. Crying.

And it feels like he still is.

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