Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World and Other Stories
Page 20
No, being eaten was not the same as dissolving, she decided. Being eaten was an ending. Being eaten was death without rebirth. The clown couldn’t stand to watch any more. She went and visited some of the animals. She patted the backs of the cotton candy sheep and scratched the dark chocolate dancing bear behind his ears.
“Don’t be so sad,” said the juggler, “we are meant to be eaten.”
She had told the juggler that very thing this morning, that it was their destiny to be eaten. She had believed it. Because of her, everyone else in the carnival—the daredevil and the zebra, the acrobats and the cotton candy sheep—all of them were content to meet their fate, week in and week out, a never-ending carnival of death.
No, the clown decided, she wouldn’t do this any more.
While the children were busy stuffing sheep into their mouths and watching the juggler toss flaming balls of sugar, the clown snuck to the edge of the carnival, intending to run away—but instead the magician spotted her. He snatched her up and stuffed her into his pocket, and kept her there until evening.
“I don’t want to do this any more,” she told him.
“I’m sorry, I truly am. But we have a party tomorrow, and I don’t have time to make another seed.” He dropped her into his cauldron and she melted away.
The clown woke angry. It was one thing to destroy her when she was willing, but the magician had thrown her in the cauldron even after she protested. Her gown reflected her mood—sugar burnt black with a dusting of granulated sugar sequins. Sour gummy animals replaced the fluffy cotton candy sheep, and dark chocolate elephants balanced on jawbreaker balls. The tents of the carnival were a shiny red, like wet blood, and the gingerbread daredevil wore a biker jacket of black licorice.
This time she would not tell the others of the joys of children’s laughter. She would warn them of the horror of being eaten, and instead of meeting their so-called destiny, they would work together and escape.
The clown was busy formulating her plans, and she did not notice that the magician was still awake until he came up behind her and snatched her away. He dropped her into a glass jar on the counter and sealed the lid. She watched from her prison as he poured out a batch of melted sugar and worked it into shape as it cooled. Before long, he had made a figure, a little over three inches tall.
It was her replacement, a handsome candy clown with pants of candied orange peel and sugar-rainbow suspenders. His face was molded into a dopey grin, and the clown knew that she would have loved him more than the gingerbread daredevil, if they had met when she had first been made. Now, though, all she felt when she looked at him was pity.
Over on the table, the carnival was waking, but she was not there to greet them. Instead, the magician spoke to them, telling them of the wonders that awaited them and reminding them that it was their destiny to be eaten. Then the magician loaded them up—the carnival and the angry clown—and took them to the party. He did not let the clown out of her jar until after the party had started.
She tried to warn the others. The animals were hopeless of course, for they understood so little of what was happening. The juggler and the bearded lady did not believe her—and why should they? The magician had been there when they woke, and she was just a clown who joined them at the party. She came too late to save them.
Her last hope was the gingerbread daredevil, who, she had to admit, looked quite striking in his biker jacket. He listened to her carefully, and even claimed to believe her. But he wasn’t willing to stop the show and run away with her. Her plans of rebellion and escape were crushed. The others didn’t change their minds even as the children ripped the tops off the red-sugar tents. “It is our destiny,” they told her, and “What would we do if we left the carnival, anyway?”
Even without the others, the clown was determined to leave. She gathered up the saltwater-taffy cords from the bungee jumping ride and used them to climb down to the floor. She was sugar, and fragile, so she knew she wouldn’t live long, but at least—for the first time—her life was truly hers.
She wove around the children’s legs. The magician stood in the open doorway demanding to be paid despite delivering a dark and dismal failure of a carnival. His arguments escalated into shouts, and the clown slipped out the door just before it slammed shut in the magician’s face. He stormed off to his van without ever looking down, and finally the clown was free. With sunshine glinting off her shiny-sugar hair, she walked out into the chest-high grass of the birthday girl’s lawn and never looked back.
On the side of a dried up drainage ditch, on the edge of an otherwise ordinary suburban neighborhood, there is an odd sort of carnival. Instead of tents there are marshmallow mushrooms in assorted shapes and colors, and instead of performing animals there are caramel deer and birds made up of chocolate-covered pretzels. The animals are not trained, and wander through the carnival as they please. There are no daredevils or jugglers or bearded ladies.
But there is a clown. She is a peaceful clown, with white-sugar hair and a minty green dress. She knows that somewhere in the city the magician still makes carnivals to be eaten, and she wonders if someday that too-happy clown will come to his senses and make his escape. She knows her carnival is temporary, and it will melt next time it rains. But she also knows that she is a seed, and that she will not be eaten, and every time the sun dries out the puddles, her carnival will grow again.
Interlude:
FLASH FICTION WORLDS
PAPERCLIPS AND MEMORIES AND
THINGS THAT WON’T BE MISSED
The ghost in my attic is Margaret, but she lets me call her Margie. She was seventy-six years old when she died, and now that she’s a ghost she sits in her rocking chair day and night, holding a tiny baby in her arms. The baby rarely moves and almost never cries. His name is Gavin, and he is thin and wrinkly and covered in fine brown hair. Funny looking, as preemies often are, but sweet nonetheless. Margie keeps him wrapped in a blanket of cobwebs, which I think is disgusting. I’ve always hated spiders.
Did you know that ghosts are like pack rats? We collect of all manner of things: Barbie hairs and memories and peanut shells and dreams of death. Invoices and autumn leaves and the words on the tip of your tongue. Margie collected Gavin, and now she collects cobwebs from my attic to be sure that he stays warm.
Technically it isn’t my attic; it belongs to my husband now. My former husband. He lives in what was once my house, with his new wife and her two kids and a newborn baby boy. The baby looks like Gavin might have, if Gavin had lived.
Here is the problem with collecting. Whatever you take, the living no longer have. So a ghost with good intentions, who takes away stubbed toes and sunburns, ends up surrounded by pain. A malicious ghost ends up with cotton candy and laughter and baby smiles and—well, it’s hard to stay mean surrounded by all that. That’s why most ghosts collect harmless stuff like paperclips and lint.
Margie wanted to be good. When she was alive, she miscarried five times. There was something wrong with her, something that kept her from carrying a baby to term. When she died, she wanted to help other women, to keep them from suffering the way that she’d suffered. She found a woman, thirty-four weeks pregnant, whose baby had died because a blood clot cut off his supply of nutrients and oxygen. Margie took the lifeless baby and named him Gavin. The pregnant woman, of course, was me.
Remember the problem with collecting? I woke up one morning without my baby, and with no real explanation why. The doctors were baffled, and I was devastated. I had lost my little boy, and there wasn’t even a cheek to kiss, no tiny body for me to hold one time before I said goodbye.
My friends and family tried to help, but they didn’t understand. My husband buried his grief in work and stayed at the office late while I cried myself to sleep. No one remembered the bottle of Percocet left over from when I got my wisdom teeth removed, so no one thought to take it away from me.
Margie haunts the attic, so I mostly haunt downstairs. I spent my first few years of ghosthood collecting l
ipstick from the purses of my husband’s girlfriends, but eventually I got over my jealousy. He remarried, and the house is nicer with children in it. Now I collect stray socks from the dryer and baby toys that fall behind the furniture.
I’m using the socks to make a quilt for Gavin, to replace the terrible cobwebs that Margie uses. I need perhaps a dozen more socks to finish it. In the meantime, I take the toys to the attic, and give them to Margie. She died old enough that her memory is bad, and she doesn’t remember that the baby she holds is my son. She simply sits in her rocking chair and cuddles his tiny body up against her chest. She tells him how his mother would have loved him, if he’d lived, and she gives him the toys that I bring.
All ghosts are collectors, even my unborn baby boy. He collects static from the radio and warm water from the bath and muffled voices that come up through the ceiling. Anything that reminds him of the womb. He is trying to recreate me.
I am tempted, sometimes, to collect my husband’s new baby. He is pudgy and gurgly and just starting to smile. But he isn’t my baby, and I know all too well the pain that it would cause if I took him from his family. So instead I haunt the house that once was mine, and listen to the children’s laughter, and try to collect only little things that won’t be missed.
PLEASE APPROVE THE DISSERTATION
RESEARCH OF ANGTOR
From: ANGTOR.lastname@u.titan.edu
To: hsrb@u.titan.edu
Date: 1:08am May 21, 2429
Subject: Please Approve the Dissertation Research of Angtor
Dear Ethics Review Board for Research on Insignificant Humans,
Angtor requests approval for dissertation research to test the theory: “Humans will destroy inhabited planets if Angtor screams death threats at them until they comply.” This is a minor variation of the Milgram experiment and is therefore eligible for expedited review.
Angtor will be the first of its brood to obtain a PhD, so it is imperative that you approve this research.
Thank you,
Angtor
*
From: jenna.wong@hsrb.titan.edu
To: ANGTOR.lastname@u.titan.edu
Date: 9:45am May 23, 2429
Subject: RE: Please Approve the Dissertation Research of Angtor
Hi Angtor,
Your dissertation is not eligible for expedited review. The Milgram experiment asked subjects to administer an electric shock. Your proposed research involves shouting death threats at students until they destroy a planet. This is not a minor variation. You need to submit a full application.
Being the first of your brood to obtain a PhD is an admirable goal, so I will give you a tip: the board cannot approve research where undergraduates are subjected to death threats.
Good luck,
Jenna Wong, Chair
Human Subjects Review Board
University of Titan
*
From: ANGTOR.lastname@u.titan.edu
To: jenna.wong@hsrb.titan.edu
Date: 12:53pm May 23, 2429
Subject: URGENT: Please Approve the Dissertation Research of Angtor
Dear Jenna Wong,
Thank you for the helpful tip. Please provide approval for Angtor’s much improved dissertation research: “Humans will destroy inhabited planets if Angtor asks them politely without making any overt death threats.” This study assesses the benefits of a public service program, and therefore is eligible for expedited review.
Angtor needs a PhD by the end of this academic year to impress a mate, therefore Angtor asks you politely for approval without making any overt death threats.
Thank you,
Angtor
*
From: jenna.wong@hsrb.titan.edu
To: ANGTOR.lastname@u.titan.edu
Date: 9:33am May 24, 2429
Subject: RE: URGENT: Please Approve the Dissertation Research of Angtor
Angtor,
There are only three weeks remaining in the academic year, so even if your proposal is approved it is unlikely that you will be able to complete your research in time to graduate this year. If you start now, you might be able to finish in time for next year.
Quick clarification question: what is the public service program your research will be assessing?
Thanks,
Jenna Wong
*
From: ANGTOR.lastname@u.titan.edu
To: jenna.wong@hsrb.titan.edu
Date: 2:06pm May 24, 2429
Subject: RE: RE: URGENT: Please Approve the Dissertation Research of Angtor
Dear Jenna Wong,
Eliminating planets infested with undesirable life forms is a public service.
Thank you,
Angtor
*
From: jenna.wong@hsrb.titan.edu
To: ANGTOR.lastname@u.titan.edu
Date: 12:14pm May 25, 2429
Subject: RE: RE: RE: URGENT: Please Approve the Dissertation Research of Angtor
Hi Angtor,
Thank you for your clarification. Your research project, “Humans will destroy inhabited planets if Angtor asks them politely without making any overt death threats,” is not eligible for expedited review. Please submit a full application.
Good luck (you’ll need it),
Jenna Wong
*
From: ANGTOR.lastname@u.titan.edu
To: jenna.wong@hsrb.titan.edu
Date: 3:06am May 26, 2429
Subject: PLEASE APPROVE THE DISSERTATION RESEARCH OF ANGTOR
Dear Jenna Wong,
You seriously expect Angtor to fill out a 37-page application form to conduct one miserable study about whether humans will destroy inhabited planets? Angtor has many important things to do to prepare for mating and producing broodlings that will spread across the galaxy. Do you not wish for Angtor to have a mate? You have already wasted one precious week of Angtor’s research time by not approving the initial proposal.
Angtor’s kin have provided the university with money to build the Katrid Library and the Tannin Museum of Galactic Conquest. They will be most displeased to hear of your resistance.
Thank you,
Angtor, Broodchild of Katrid, Ruler of the Tannin Empire
*
From: jenna.wong@hsrb.titan.edu
To: ANGTOR.lastname@u.titan.edu
Date: 8:22am May 29, 2429
Subject: RE: PLEASE APPROVE THE DISSERTATION RESEARCH OF ANGTOR
Dear Angtor,
I am pleased to inform you that we can do an expedited review for your dissertation research after all, thereby saving you the trouble of filling out a full application form. I do have a few clarification questions, as the description of your study was not entirely clear:
1. Will the undergraduates in the study be destroying actual planets, or will they see a simulation of planets being destroyed?
2. Will assignment to the experimental group be randomized?
3. Do you plan to eat the undergraduates at the end of the study?
With sincerest respect for your parents,
Jenna Wong
*
From: ANGTOR.lastname@u.titan.edu
To: jenna.wong@hsrb.titan.edu
Date: 6:21pm May 29, 2429
Subject: RE: RE: PLEASE APPROVE THE DISSERTATION RESEARCH OF ANGTOR
Dear Jenna Wong,
1. Actual planets will be destroyed. Angtor does not care what puny undergraduate research subjects see. What will make the review board approve this dissertation research? Kittens? Undergraduates will see pictures of kittens.
2. Angtor will randomly put all the undergraduates into the group where they destroy planets.
3. Angtor will only eat the undergraduates that do not comply. The others are free to go out and live their insignificant lives until such time as Angtor selects a mate and produces a hungry brood.
Thank you,
Angtor
*
From: jenna.wong@hsrb.titan.edu
To: ANGTOR.lastname@u.titan.edu
Subject: Application for Research Denied
Dear Angtor,
With sincerest apologies to you and your exalted parents, I am unable to approve your application for “Humans will destroy inhabited planets if Angtor asks them politely without making any overt death threats.”
As a precaution for my personal safety, I have fled the university prior to sending this message. Please do not reply to this message, as I have requested this email account be deleted.
Goodbye,
Jenna Wong
*
From: ANGTOR.lastname@u.titan.edu