by Jon Jacks
Americarnie Trash
Jon Jacks
Other New Adult and Children’s books by Jon Jacks
The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly
The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale
A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)
The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator
Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666
P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers
Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)
Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent
Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak
Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife
Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches
Text copyright© 2015 Jon Jacks
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Chapter 1
Trash, tramps and thieves – townsfolk see them all as interchangeable when it comes to describing Americarnie folk.
Even so, whenever we’re in town, they’ll come to see our show.
To have their fortunes told. To buy miracle cures. To get drunk. To make fun of us. To luxuriate in their sudden sense of superiority.
They’re laughing now, at our stupidity. At our ridiculous beliefs.
It’s a free show. One we put on out of pride. To give an idea of whom we once were.
Whom we believe we once were.
Not that we’re really entitled to hold that belief.
It’s blasphemy. Leaving us open to arrest. Even execution.
Therefore it has to be a comical show. To show we’re not serious.
It also has to feature other acts, like juggling, fire-eating, the trapeze. To ensure they come to watch.
A story that goes back almost three thousand years, trivialised.
The shepherds below me, their nervous conversations coming to an end, look up in fear as they see me fly overhead.
The light from the oil lamps, directed my way with angled mirrors, lights up my glistening gown, my glistening wings, as I soar high through the air.
The simple shepherds crumple to the ground. They almost bury their faces in the earth in their terror.
‘Now I pray you, I lie down on this green!’ one wails.
‘On these fears; repentance I mean!’
The small yet incredibly high plinth I have to land on, like most of the trapeze apparatus, is in darkness.
It all adds to the sense of the miraculous.
But it makes it all the more dangerous for me.
I land lightly, gracefully, on the plinth. I stretch out my vast wings, peer down imperiously on the cowering shepherds far below me.
The light cast on me glows all the brighter, adding to the sense that I am a fearful messenger from God.
‘Where to should ye turn?’ the bravest of the shepherds asks of me, daring to look up at last. ‘So, what is it I must say you?’
‘Rise, herd men!’ I cry triumphantly. ‘For now is he born! God is made your friend, now at this morn!’
Although still quaking, the shepherds begin to rise from the ground. Even so, they avert their eyes as they attempt to observe my gloriously glowing presence.
‘He be-stays at Bedlem, go see,’ I continue, hoping that my voice carries the necessary majestic tones, the hints of awe. ‘There lies that child, in a crib full poorly!’
My message to the shepherds delivered, I raise my arms; and soar off up, up into the darkness of the night sky.
*
Like our equipment, Jeserel is cloaked in the blackest materials.
With the ingenious interplay of light, the perfectly rehearsed moving of the mirrors, no one should have seen him swing down on his trapeze, snatch down at my raised arms, and pull me back up into the air with him.
As we reach the top of the curve, he throws me out into the air so that, briefly, I really am flying, with nothing supporting me but the momentum of the swing.
I twirl a few times in the air, letting my blazingly white wings wrap around me.
I reach out for Verelda’s outstretched hands, hoping she is out there in the darkness, ready to catch me.
*
As, in her turn, Verelda flings me up onto the highest point of the pole, the lights playing on me are covered in black sheets.
To the watching crowd, I appear to vanish as I soar ever upwards into the darkness.
Once again, however, it’s a darkness that makes it all so much more dangerous for me. I have to remember, through so many days of practice, where I’ll find the small platform I have to land on, the ropes I must grab for security.
My fingers curl around the invisible rope. My feet slip smoothly onto the minute wooden platform.
I sigh with relief, my heart almost bursting with the pleasure of knowing I’m safe once more. At least, that is, until my next appearance.
Far below me, the play goes on.
It’s a travesty, a disgrace.
If the audience could see me, they would see the weeping of an angel.
Yes, we adhere to the lines of an original Miracle Play: but we add our own devices, as we have to by law, to be sure of an audience.
The baby’s father places him across his shoulder, burps him. The fire-eater hiding in the darkness breathes out his fire, such that it seems to come from the baby himself.
The audience laughs.
The father holds the baby as if he has dirtied himself.
The audience laughs all the more.
The attendant shepherds wave their hands, as if wafting away a terrible smell.
‘Might I kneel on my knee,’ a shepherd asks, ‘some word for to say to that child?’
I fling myself out into the air, the light on me once more.
To the audience, I’m an angel flying. As, I’m reliably told, we used to do so long, long ago.
In the time when we still had wings.
The time when we ruled the earth.
His timing perfect, Jeserel catches me in mid-air. His hands tightly clasp around my wrists, catching me at the top of his curving swing on his trapeze.
As he swings back down, he takes me with him, letting me go as we near the plinth once more.
I land on the darkened plinth, my wings outstretched to give the impression that I’m hovering high above the manger.
‘In a crib was he laid,’ I pronounce imperiously. ‘He was poorly arrayed, both manner and mild.’
As I’m carried up into the air once more by the secure, outstretched arms of a swooping Verelda, I glance down at the shepherd juggling with his gifts.
It’s a parody of the tale we would once have told with such conviction.
As Verelda throws me out into the seemingly empty black air yet again, I wonder, as I always do at this point, if someone is going to be there to catch me.
Today, though, I don’t care.
In fact, I sense Jeserel’s hands rush by me in the darkness, clutching at nothing.
I haven’t reached out for them, as I’m supposed to do.
For today I can fly.
I can prove, today, to everyone fo
rtunate to be watching, that all our tales are true.
I stretch out my arms beneath my outspread wings.
I smile blissfully.
I can hear the audience rising to their feet, screaming out in wonder and awe.
It’s true! Angels really exist!
*
Chapter 2
I can’t move.
My back hurts. Hurts like it’s on fire.
My head hurts. Throbbing.
I’m dazed, my vision unclear. But I can make out people crowding around me.
Leaning over me. Their faces concerned.
Verelda is there too. Crying, for some reason. Jeserel has his arms around her, like he’s trying to comfort her.
Letting her know there’s nothing she can do. That it wasn’t her fault.
‘Don’t touch her, don’t touch her! She’s probably broken her spine!’
That’s Kevarn. I recognise his voice, his concern for me.
‘What’s wrong? Why can’t I move, Kevarn?’
‘Just stay still, Sel; stay still. We’re getting help – help’s on its way!’
He smiles, like that’s enough to reassure me. Yet it’s a forced, worried smile; and that worries me.
There are a number of people gathered around me. All looking worried. All looking down at me.
I try and rise up, but I can’t.
I’m lying on the huge pile of garments and curtains that are used throughout the show. Where the actors come for a quick change of clothes, to transform into another character. It’s all in darkness, so no one in the audience sees what’s going on.
Only, now, it’s not all in darkness. I can see the costumes, the bright colours and fake gems of the gowns of the Three Magi.
I haven’t announced the birth to them. Have I?
The lights are on all around me. Spoiling the magic. Revealing the trapeze, the wires, the ropes.
‘Is it over?’ I ask Kevarn uncertainly. ‘I can’t remember…can’t remember the show finishing?’
‘Yes, yes; tonight’s show is over,’ he says, once again with that strained smile.
I chuckle.
Not at what he’s just said, of course.
No, I just find it amusing that, just beyond his head, a white feather is slowly falling through the air towards me. Swirling in the slightest breeze, it’s so light.
So beautiful.
An angel’s feather.
There are other single, glaringly white feathers scattered around me. Not many. Not that I can see, anyway. I can only make them out by straining my eyes to bring them into view.
Didn’t I have…didn’t I have wings?
Yes – there they are.
But they’re not a part of me anymore, no longer attached to my back.
They’re hanging, tangled and broken, amongst the ropes not far above me.
They still look beautiful. Amazing.
But they’re bent, crooked,
Useless for flying.
I laugh again.
I remember now.
I was flying. Soaring through the air.
The audience gasping in admiration. In surprise.
But then…then something went wrong. I began to drop. To fall.
And yet – it was my wings that had saved me.
As I fell, they’d remained outstretched. Snagging time and time again on the ropes strung around and supporting the trapeze equipment.
They’d slowed my fall. Even, briefly, made me twirl in the air gracefully.
Then they’d snapped free.
No longer willing to give me my freedom.
It was their own freedom they desired.
And so they deposited me here, on this pile of mouldy, bogusly glamourous clothes.
They don’t exist, do they?
Angels, I mean.
There’s no such thing as angels.
Not anymore.
My mom, Americarnie folk: they’re all just liars, aren’t they?
*
Chapter 3
It was the teachers, after all, who had been speaking the truth.
Every class I had to attend, I put up with the ridicule, the sneers. Because, deep down inside, I just knew they were wrong: Americarnie folk are descended from angels!
The Testament tells us so.
Or, rather the Testament as it was originally written tells us this. It had been rewritten many times, to hide the truth. Even the Testaments we hide from the authorities, when they come searching for them, even those don’t contain the original and true Testament.
Or so my mom, my friends, and leaders amongst the Americarnie always told me. Always reassured me that we were the chosen people.
That’s why we could put up with the jeering, the laughter. The distaste. The hate.
And yes, I would experience all that whenever I attended a class. In whichever town we’d arrived at. Wherever we were playing.
I couldn’t see why I was ordered to attend school. It was the same lesson for me every time anyway.
A ‘as Selmerey’s here today, let’s welcome her by exploring the history of the Americarnie’ lesson.
Every teacher. Every time.
A lesson held in their language, naturally.
Hardly anyone, only other Americarnie folk, speak my language now. And we’re not allowed to speak it in public. Or even if any non-carnie folk are around.
Mom used to say – before she left me, left for another carnival, another man – that there was a time when everyone spoke our language.
A time when we were the ones who lived in the towns, the cities.
But even I, as wide-eyed as I was when Mom told me these stories, used to think she was just a little crazy when she said we were the ones who’d built those cities. Along with the now defunct machines that once ran them. Machines that once kept the cities alight throughout the night.
But just how much of Mom’s version of history can I trust?
Every school I visit, every school text book I’m given to read, tells a different story to Mom's.
In the schools' version, we, the Americarnie, were the destroyers of the world that used to be; we were, it seems, always liars and thieves.
We’d demanded more and more of the world’s resources, waged war on others to steal their share. And, ironically, because of this we thought ourselves superior to those we’d impoverished.
Of course, when I’m there, in a class, the teacher at least tries to put all this history across in as nice a way as possible.
She – it's always a she – hopes her pupils understand that they should always show tolerance to the Americarnie way of life. Even though the Americarnie had only ever shown intolerance to others.
Only in this way, she would invariably say, would the Americarnie learn the many errors of their ways, gain humility, and ask for forgiveness of their many sins.
‘And does anyone know where the name Americarnie comes from?’
I can count on one hand the classes where this question wasn’t innocently asked by the teacher.
No one really knows. Not the real reasons, anyway.
A merging of three ancient words, giving Amiracarne. A, regarding; miracula; Miracle Play; and carne, flesh – Miracle Play made Flesh.
But everyone knows the word’s false etymology.
And every class has the smart-ass who, to the accompanying sniggers of his friends, supposedly innocently puts his hand up and gives it as his answer.
Amori-carne.
Love Meat.
It was because of this that, despite the classes being humiliating enough, the breaks were always even worse.
Far, far worse.
Then it was hands up my dress. Hands down my dress.
No matter how much I tried to fight them off, or beg to be left alone.
No matter how much I tried to shrink within myself.
There were always too many of them to resist. Too many hands to continually dash away.
The hand arou
nd the mouth; that was always the sign that things were turning even worse.
The dragging off behind a wall, or into bushes.
My only hope in such a situation was that either Kevarn or Lorn, after their usual desperate searching of the school, would find me.
Of course, they would always get a beating for their trouble.
Particularly poor Lorn. Naturally, he’d prefer to hide his deformity, rather than drawing attention to himself. That way, he was only opening himself up for taunting.
But carnie have to stick together.
Neither of the boys would let me suffer in this way. Even though it always cost them dearly.
Sometimes, at last on our way home, it would be a while before Lorn would speak to me.
As if I’d brought all this trouble upon myself. Upon him.
‘It’s the way you look!’ he would snap, turning away, turning his twisted back towards me.
‘It’s all so easy for you, isn’t it?’ he would sometimes add in a pained mumble. ‘It’s so, so easy to believe you were descended from angels!’
*
‘Where are they?’
Some of the people standing around me are getting angry, glaring off towards the carnival’s entrance.
‘They were called ages ago!’
Kevarn is still concernedly hovering over me.
‘Here, Sel,’ he says, opening up one of his bottles of ElixiAir, bringing it close towards my lips, ‘this will help; trust me!’
I laugh. But I wish I hadn’t; laughing is getting very, very painful.
‘Kevarn! I know what’s in your remedy, remember?’
‘No, no, you don’t understand,’ he insists, pressing the bottle to my lips, letting the liquid seep into my mouth. ‘These are the real waters: Diabolus waters!’
I almost splutter, wondering if this is wise, drinking something acquired from Carnival Diabolus.
‘You need it,’ he insists all the more vehemently, yet managing to keep his voice low, unheard by anyone but me. ‘You’ve broken your back! Even if they’re prepared to treat you, you’ll be in a wheelchair the rest of your life!’
‘How… how do you know?’ I stammer nervously between gulps.
‘I’ve seen enough ill and injured people in my life to know when it’s best not to claim my ElixiAir will cure them!’
He forces more of the sharply bitter liquid down my throat. I almost cough it all up.
I’m not sure this is at all wise.
