Creative Writing- Chapter One

The circus is where I feel safe. Dazzling lights flash around the mechanical spinning wheel, red-blue-yellow-orange-back to red. It’s hypnotising, the colours bleed into one another as I watch the wheel spin round. My eyes drift to the hand-painted clown in the centre of the spinning blur. Its mouth is stretched into a wide grin, teeth clenched behind overlined red lips. He stares at me with an almost maniacal look in his star-filled eyes. I stare back. The mechanical clicking slows as the wheel comes to a stop.

A cacophony of deafening alarm bells sound, coming from everywhere at once. I would have thought the world was ending if not for the familiarity of the high pitched screech, the scuffle of feet trying frantically to get in formation and the hushed voices, snippets of which caught my ear. ‘ . . .sleeping in again. . .you heard what happened to Francis, boy. . . get up. . .god, he’s as deaf as a post. . .GET UP!’ A sharp whisper through clenched teeth. I pull myself up quickly, too fast. Head spinning as heavy footsteps march towards the metal door, rhythmic like the hand of a conductor or the minute hand on a clock. The key turns in the lock and opens with a click that reverberates around the fear encased room. I will away the grogginess that dampens my senses. Nine of us stand side-by-side, barefoot on the numbingly cold metal floor, backs straight, eyes down, silent. One of the supervisors from our faction stands before us, clipboard in hand and next to him, a bodyguard. I recognise him as one of the guards who took down a member of our cell last week. A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth as if he can hear my heart pounding in my chest, smell the fear. Supervisors never bring bodyguards into our cells, his presence here is a warning. An unspoken threat as if to say, ‘which one of you will be next.‘ Francis knew escape wasn’t an option, we all did. Our pleading did nothing to sway him. It was an impossible task, a suicide mission. I wonder if he knew that too.

The Merry-go-round.

Brilliant. The merry-go-round is my favourite. Pops and clicks sound behind me, sighs of an engine starting and the whir of a machine booting up. Dizziness swells within me just looking at the thing. It’s bigger than I remember, fifteen metres high at least, with a luminescent neon sign reading ‘CARNIVAL SOMNIUM’ in old-fashioned text. The Dream Carnival. Ethereal light pours from the merry-go-round, pooling in my eyes. I drink it up, catching every little detail the light bounces off. I’ve never felt this alive. This feeling is addictive. I run towards the gold ornamented stairs and up onto the platform. My stomach jumps at the sight of it and for an instant, a burning desire lights up inside me. Twelve horses sit frozen within the merry-go-round as if their movements have been halted in the midst of a swift gallop, elegant and regal. A long winding vine that appears to be made of solid gold curls around the stallions, forming shapes both delicate and enticing. It seems to move, even perform as I approach, beckoning me towards the glowing machine, to the horses, to the wondrously brilliant light, to the promise of something exciting. And in the centre of it all hangs a breathtaking crimson banner, the words ‘The Dream Carnival’ embroidered into the fabric with a silver thread. I swing my leg over the horse in front of me and wait for the ride to begin.

To my left a boy is shivering, eyes locked onto the ground. I don’t know his name, only his number. Nine. He’s one of the new ones, brought in with some beggars a couple of weeks back, chucked into our division for lack of any other place to go. It was a justice really, that he wasn’t killed, but the system always has a use for extra bodies. I drag my eyes up from the ground until they land on the supervisor. He’s starting at the other end of the line, checking off our numbers one by one. The lead of the pencil scrapes over the paper, coarse/irregular/violent/threatening, like his hand is gripping the pencil too tightly. Each of our numbers are assigned a dosage of what they call the Bliss, mandatory and taken every morning. I can’t remember why we take it anymore, I just know that I long for the feeling of stardust in my veins-I don’t care if that costs me my humanity. For the moment, all I can do is watch anxiously as the supervisor makes it down the line. I watch as Fours’ head tilts back, eyes rolled into his head in a state of pure euphoria. From the outside, this would look cruel, sadistic, inhumane. But this is all we have. All there is to look forward to. The boy to my left is restless, picking at his dirt-encrusted nails, chewing on chapped raw lips, eyes flickering down the line every so often and then firmly back to the ground in front of him. It’s not unusual for us to be anxious before taking our shot of Bliss, the effects of it never last the full day, but the boy looks as though he’s about to bolt through the open door and down the hall, face-to-face with an unfortunate but certain death. I hope he knows better than to test the supervisors’ patience. Air sharply sucked in through clenched teeth. A sigh of relief. Sevens’ done, it’s my turn. I watch, overcome with anticipation as the supervisor strikes my name off the list, checks my dosage number and checks again, can’t be too careful. My legs shake, coated with a fine layer of sweat. He pulls a small clip from the red medical bag resting at his hip and fits it onto my thumb. They don’t use syringes, too easy to snatch out of a careless hand and plunge into the throat of the poor, unaware soul. Not that such an action would guarantee our freedom anyway. The supervisor takes a step closer. I can smell his breath, mouldy and acidic. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, do it already. He lifts his hand and flicks the bottom of the clip, once, twice. The sharp point of a needle pierces into the pad of my thumb and iridescent euphoria takes ahold of me.

The merry-go-round hums as it starts to spin round, taking me with it. I couldn’t describe how I truly feel in this moment even if I tried. The air is syrupy and thick, glowing a luminescent orange as I float through it, eyes wide, mouth agape in wonder. I could’ve laughed. The circus around me begins to blur. Stardust falls from the merry-go-round, coating the horses with a blanket of shimmer. I think for a moment that a figure stands at the foot of the merry-go-round but no. It can’t be, this is my place. My escape. They don’t get to come here. I look for a second time and sure enough, there’s someone there. Nine looks at me as I spin round, faster and faster, I can only just make out his face. His expression is pained/scared/broken. It happens fast. Nine turns to sprint down the path but he’s stopped. The clown with over-lined red lips, clenched teeth and star-filled eyes stands over him, only this time the stars have died and black beads remain.

A swift hit, an unnatural crack, a spray of red staining the concrete. The air, once sweet like honey turns bitter in my mouth. Nine’s head is craned at a grotesque angle, his eyes wide open, looking straight at me. I laugh. He deserves it for thinking he could escape the cell, avoid the Bliss, leave us here, leave me here. He’s better off dead.

I can hardly see the body now, the gold vines are curling over him, pushing what remains of Nine into the ground. Stardust falls over the red. It was never there. I turn to look at the horse next to me. Seven looks at me with star-filled eyes and a maniacal grin wide enough to make him look insane. I wonder if I look the same. I don’t care if I do. I’m happy. The circus is where I feel safe.