The Carnies

Chapter Six

6

I could feel it. I was already shaking from stimulated nerves and an increase in the rushing of the blood. Storm and I took one another's free hand and went one step forward. We were falling. It was black, there was nothing. All the pain was amplified by our screams. My eyes squeezed closed and my nails dug into Storm's hand and vise versa. There was nothing, of course there was. Nothing was around me, I didn't even think I was breathing, my rib cage was being pressed together so tightly. Would this happen for all eternity? This pain in my chest, this smashing of my head on both sides? Now I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or not. I couldn't feel if my lashes were resting on my cheek or on the bone just below my brows. I was so famished and so thirsty. I felt like I was one hundred, maybe one thousand years of age. Then it all stopped. My interior was still capable of working. I could hear my heart pounding in my head and I could think. I couldn't move, I couldn't feel Storm anymore.

I was alive? There was dirt under my shoes? There was air in my lungs? I fluttered open my eyes and gasped. There were so many people! I put the key inside my brazier and blinked a couple more times. There were huge boxes lining the streets. I think they were houses. Storm had told me about houses, and there was this hard gray stone held the ground under me. I touched it with my hands. It made a slapping sound, not a smooth one like the grass. Someone rudely pushed me and mumbled under his breath for me to move aside.

I kept walking, not being able to comprehend this dream. Storm laughed, leading me along. I tucked my stray hairs behind my ear and stumbled sloppily up to his side.

“Where are we?” I asked, not being to able to fully find my voice. It smelled like something I had only smelled a couple times before when the animals and hotdogs hadn’t masked the air all the way. I looked up and saw black clouds puffing out of tubes on top of the big boxes. People kept walking in and out of the big wooden doors. The womens dresses puffed out so large and awkwardly. I thought that the wind would carry them away like a parasol. Their faces were so pale and powdered. It was like they were wearing the costumes I used to be forced into.

The men were dressed differently, too. Suited in black and trimmed to perfection. Many of them held canes, but they hardly touched the ground as the men walked quickly up and down the stoney, elevated strips. The shoes were always making crunching noise as the stones compressed with the hardened rubber. Then there were other people. People who looked sick and people who looked poor. I felt badly for them, for the kids who’s hands they whipped through the crowds and the half naked, cold babies balanced on their hips. There were beggars lining the sides and people just walked by them like they were invisible, obsolete to the world.

I emptied my pockets and found three shillings. I dropped them in an older man’s cup.

“Bless you,” he whispered, smiling up to me like I was the sun, his teeth dingy and brown. A humble smile from my lips was returned.

“I only remember this from dreams, I thought.” Storm whispered to himself. “I don’t feel as this is real.” I kept gazing, feeling people bump into me, knocking my shoulder forward, pushing me ahead a couple steps.

We slowly found our way through the clumps of others. There was so much to see! I wanted to suck it all in before I woke up. It seemed as though sleep was the only thing that held this together. I hiked up my skirt as I walked up the wet looking steps to the big wooden door. I pressed my hand against it and looked through the little hole in the center of it where my eye could reach when I stood on my toes. It didn’t show such a grand inside as I thought it would be. It was just a fuzzy light. I sighed and stepped away. Storm stood to my left and was staring forward along with me.

I went to another man on the side of the oversized box. He was dressed nicely like the rushing men, but he sat like a beggar. He just sat there, humming to himself and rocking back and forth. He wasn't looking at anything, but it seemed as though he noticed all that took place around him.