As I Was Going to Strawberry Fair

Chapter 2

Marshal

I walked in disguise through Strawberry Fair. I knew her face less than she knew mine. But she'd told me I must find her here, with a garden in her hair and a bracelet of cat tails, a shirt the color of a beating heart, skirt wove from the light of night's sun, and shoes the color of longing. The total made a difficult picture yet I felt confident I'd know her when our eyes met.

But the Fair was full of girls with flowers bound to braids and bangs, blooms painted across faces, blossoms hanging from hats. I spotted bracelets with bells and jangles and shells and tangles of shapes difficult to identify in a moment's passing as feline. I went over the words of her promise. The color of a beating heart should be red; and the light of the sun at night must surely be moonlight. 'Longing-colored shoes' threw me. Perhaps something sullen but hot? I looked for a girl dressed in a red blouse and silver skirt wobbling on high heels unsuited to the brick and grass paths of the Fair. I worried over the words, suspecting I had the riddle wrong.

I was not the only one seeking a face they didn't know. A tall knight in black armor held a single long-stemmed rose out and before him like a torch, parting the crowd as he searched left and right for the agreed counter-sign. I wished with all my heart for him to startle, then rush to embrace some creature holding the equal opposite rose.

I bumped a pretty maid with braids of cotton candy. Her breasts swelled over the top of her dress, two bald babies peeking astonished at the world. She held a sign saying 'It's me, Bob'. For a moment she searched in the shadow of my hood, wondering. I shook my head. I was not Bob. She sighed, continued on.

I wore a monk's cloak with a hood to hide my face. It made me stumble but I needed to avoid certain individuals who had also promised to meet me at the fair. I spotted one leaning against the post of a tent by the entrance gate. Tattoos writhed across the muscles of his folded arms. A barbarian costume one might think; but no, that was real barbarian; the hundred-proof distilled product. I observed the stains of blood on the leather pants, the knife-slashes across the riveted wrist-cuffs. Those were not clever costume touches. He scowled into the crowd, scanning for my face. I pretended membership with a tangle of drunken fairies heading down the path.

Archetypes and personifications walked the fair, stalked the throng. I circled a troubadour puffing 'Yesterday' on an oboe and came face to face with Death. His white-bone face started in surprise; obviously he'd just been thinking about me. Avoid eye contact, I advised myself. I stepped left as he stepped left; we both hesitated then I stepped right as he stepped right. He fumbled with a theater-prop scythe across his shoulder while I feinted left then continued left, around and past.

I stopped to consider a girl dressed all in see-through hearts. She wore silvery heels in a manner inspiring several shades of longing. Was that her? And a garland of roses slipped sly over an eye. But she flirted with a faux pope. His Holiness strove to keep his three-tiered hat balanced while holding onto his crozier, a turkey-leg, a tankard of beer, and she the Queen of Gauzy Hearts. Some schism seemed inevitable. She caught my gaze and smiled, winding herself a bit more tightly to the papacy. The Pope belched. Not the right girl, I decided, walked on.

A hermit blocked the way, holding a lantern to the crowd as though we passed him by in darkest night. I edged around but he whirled and shoved the lamp into my hood, banging my nose. He cackled at what the lamp revealed, which presumably was my snarl of pain. The blow and his beery breathe staggered me. For a moment we faced each other. I considered grabbing him by his fake beard. He swung his lamp back and forth preparing to anoint me with a bucket of light. Then he gestured for me to draw near. He had some secret to share. Shaking my head I went carefully around the lunatic, searching for the girl in shoes the color of longing.