CIRCO
Page 1
CIRCO
Written by Winston
Edited by Brishen Doron
Cover Illustration by Raul Pazos
Published by C.O.M
(Collective Of Monsters)
(Cooperative Of Misfits)
C.O.M (Publishing Group)
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © C.O.M
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form without permission. Purchase only authorized copies. For further information contact sswinston@ymail.com
CIRCO
Vanessa
You are all witnesses to the trials of Vanessa Medina. Her reality was a harshly mundane existence, growing blander every day. She was desperate to jump out the routine; feeling as if life would leave her behind, if she didn’t do something that would stir a little character.
The alarm clock blared.
6 am, Vanessa rolled out of bed in a white tank top and red boy briefs, wiping the sleep from her eyes. She headed out the door to start her morning chores.
“Wait,” she heard. It was her baby sister Brenda hopping out of the same bed.
“What?! I had no idea you were there,” Vanessa asked sternly.
“I get scared and lonely,” Brenda said.
“Were you sleeping next to me the whole night?”
“Yeah, but I need somebody to sleep next to. And plus I…” Vanessa walked away.
Even though they shared a room, Brenda had her own bed; but preferred sleeping with her big sister. So each night Brenda waits for Vanessa to fall asleep, then climbs right in and when the clock tower sings in the morning, she tiptoes out undetected. However she wasn’t expecting the alarm clock today.
“Wait for me. I wanna come,” said Brenda. “Why you up so early?”
Vanessa didn’t give an answer. She was focused on finishing her morning chores early so she could fix breakfast for herself. Her mother went partying last night, as it is often. So she decided today she didn’t want to eat hangover cooking.
She lived with her family, under the four faces of the fifth tallest clock tower in the world. Despite this fact, it was, and still is, a very poor attraction site. Practically less than a hundred people visited the site a year. Hell, half of Detroit’s population doesn’t even know it exists. It was erected on august, 20, 1914. When founded it was widely criticized about its blatant redesign of London’s famous clock tower. Hence earning the name ‘Big Ben’s ugly little sister’. After decades of upkeep costs and maintenance it became a burden on the city and in the eighties it was bought by Vanessa’s father.
The clock tower chimed to a new day for an awakening city. She heard the family throughout the home; starting the usual every day morning rituals. Vanessa was already in the kitchen preparing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She had the right to do so because her chores were already finished.
She swept the main entrance way to the building and then mopped after, she did light dusting over the history section of the building. She cleaned the Men’s and Women’s bathrooms; she cleaned the mirrors with vinegar and newspaper; scrubbed the toilets with some blue stuff and a toilet brush, washed out the urinals. Yes, you read that right, she was made to wash out the urinals as well.
She was now ready to fill her belly with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and glass of milk.
“Where’s mine?” asked Brenda.
“Make it yourself,” said Vanessa. She didn’t sit at the breakfast table; she stood next to the counter top with her plate. She took a bite and it was euphoric. The blend of peanut butter and jelly hit her pallet just right. She took a sip of milk; it went down ice cold. She gently sways side to side and shuffles her feet. She danced when she ate; it was her weird little habit.
Kitchen lights came on. Mommy stumbled in.
“Wha re you girls doin in the dark?” she asked.
“We’re making sandwiches,” Brenda said.
“Goo, two peepu less I’ll make breakfas for.”
She jumbles through the fridge and cabinets trying to create a breakfast.
“Hwere is the Engish mahfinss? Hwere did all the bcon go? How come we ere almoos ou of eggs? Serisly you guys wha happen?” The effect of the party was still apparent. Mommy was drunk to the point where she was literally a parody of herself. Vanessa was amused. She had seen this episode many times, it was practically a rerun.
“Mommy, maybe you should let everyone make cereal,” Brenda suggested. Unbeknownst to her she lit a match. Mommy became confrontational towards her baby girl.
“Hwa tha fawk yu trinna say?!” Mommy glared at her little girl.
“You look sleepy, is all.”
Vanessa grabbed Brenda and left before things could escalate. She pulled her sister all the way from the kitchen, passed the living room, outside the apartment into a hallway. Then up a spiraling metal stair case. They were in the clock.
“Never say I don’t do anything for you,” Vanessa said. “We’re going to stay up here until mom sobers.”
Brenda hated coming up here. All the spinning gears and the constant growl of the rotors made her nervous. She felt like she was inside an ugly giant monster. And the great bell suspended over the room was like the uvula. Brenda clutched on to Vanessa, covering her face with the skin of her sister’s thigh.
“I had a dream last night,” Vanessa said. “I was finally going to get away.”
“Was I with you,” Brenda asked.
“I didn’t see you.”
“Oh. Well was it a good dream?”
“All dreams are good. Nightmares are the ones you look out for.”
“Nightmares. I don’t like them. Those are bad dreams.”
“Not necessarily, sometimes nightmares have messages you need to pay attention to.”
“But they are about scary monsters.”
“The real monsters don’t need to be big and ugly. They look like ordinary people.”
“Those are just bad people.”
“Well there’s no such thing as good people either.”
“Whadya mean?”
“I really think no one was ever good. Good doesn’t exist. It’s an arbitrary set of ideals that has no real definition.”
“God knows who’s good. Because he takes them to heaven.”
“Oh don’t tell me... You shouldn’t believe in that?”
Brenda’s eyes widened.
“My guess is the rapture happened a long time ago and all the really good people left the Earth.” She heard a thump from below, followed by Mommy’s screams and curses. “Now we all live in a hell full of assholes. The best assholes rise to power, while the part time assholes are the lower class because they just don’t try hard enough.”
The Medina Family