3 Rings
by Eric Grizzle

 "clowns they scare the children
roll around the ring
the animals they wanna kill
anyone, anything"
                                                                                        - Grease Paint and Monkey Brains - White Zombie

 "A man must stand in fear of just those things that truly have the power to do us harm,
of nothing else, for nothing else is fearsome."
                                         - Dante’s Inferno

   The car carved a niche in the night, over pavement still warm from the afternoon sun and spreading out before us like a pink scar in the earth. The evergreens sighed above us and I rolled the window down to feel the wind, gods’ breath, upon my face. Your eyes reflected the dashboard lights and I felt no comfort there.

   "Where are we going?" I asked from behind a stone wall. You placed your dry hand upon my leg and tried to smile, one-half of your face twitching upwards with great effort. I listened to the sounds of twilight blurring with the wheels into a lulling symphony. I rested my eyes, forgetting the humid, dirty smell of humans kept together too long.

   The lurch of the car pulling over onto the macadam woke me. I squinted through the piercing lights to see you silhouetted perfectly still, both hands on the steering wheel, breathing with the gentle undulation of the car’s motor. "What?" I rubbed my eyes with the back of one hand. Turning my head, I followed the trail of cars, like empty husks, left on both sides of the road, the powerful outdoor lamps casting sharp, unnatural shadows. On the left, the trees had been cleared away to reveal a rough, rather large clearing containing several buildings: apparently a sprawling homestead, several smaller storage buildings and a looming wooden structure in the back. Dust whirled through the lights, as if dancing to a fiddle being tuned.

   Opening the car door, I stumbled into the dying grass and blinked. An old-fashioned circus cage holding a tiger with furious green eyes creaked in the road ahead of us. Men in overalls and hats with wide brims toiled with the vessel, trying to pull the tiger parallel across the road towards the blinding lights. The air was scented with hay and harvest moons. Sounds of a crowd pulled me towards them, promising danger and cotton candy. I went willingly, my feet finding a path past broken tree stumps and dry branches, over the asphalt and through the blockade of vehicles to the wide expanse of dirt usually associated with fairgrounds.

   You weren’t with me. I tried to shield my eyes back through the gloom to call to you but lost my way. A scream tore the cloth of night followed by a giggle and no one seemed to notice. The people filed past me towards the barn, coming from the low dip of the road and the surrounding expanse of sagging, unremarkable trees. I heard the trump of elephants and stamping of feet, the low hum of electricity and the hushed excitement of the crowd. Dread, thick and sticky, clamped onto my spine and welled into my sinuses. I no longer wanted to see the Big Show.

   I reached the side of the barn and ran my hand across the peeling wood. The walls vibrated with hunger; plucking ancient strings in anticipation of something. Unable to resist, I pulled open a small side door. The muscles in my face relaxed, mouth falling open and I beheld a vast—American gothic—arena climbing high into the haylofts above. The stands were swallowed in absolute darkness, devoid of all but sounds. Hisses rained down upon the floor with the stomping of feet and dust gathered overhead. An old man in oily overalls with a bloodied handkerchief in his back pocket, stood before me with his back turned, a shotgun in his hands. In the middle were two enormous elephants with long, dirty tusks, perched grudgingly on their hind legs.

   The cutest little girl of about four years of age, slipped in beside me. She paused to look up at me, her mouth the sweetest symbol of innocence and brushed her long hair away from her eyes and crooked glasses. "Honey, don’t!" I started to say, my voice an empty conch shell. She smiled brighter and the old man turned his eyes, dark as the gun barrels, on me. "This isn’t for you." The elephants watched, their eyes empty saucers, their legs paddling forward. The girl skipped inside and the crowd held their breath.

   The man whirled back around, his gun pointing towards the heavens and watched the girl amber up to the closest elephant. She pushed her glasses up on her little nose and craned her head back to look into the creature’s huge eyes. Placing her pink hands on its legs, she smiled. The barn boomed and lightning flashed from the gun. Hay rained down like a fall of ash and the elephant stumbled backwards a step and then they began to gnash their teeth and toss their majestic heads to and fro. The little girl was crushed on the first blow, her glasses breaking softly under the cheers and cries of the people, her blood streaked blond hair entwining around one massive foot and the rest of her body dragged along the disturbed floor of the barn like a ruptured piñata. My cries mingled with the sounds of the animals breaking free. The other elephant charged the old man and ran him through with a ragged tusk beneath his armpit. I turned and ran, ran into the bloated uncertainty of night and her secrets, ran into the scratching tree-like arms of nightmares and the heavy, unforgettable horror of knowledge and fear.

   On the strip of asphalt, I faltered and placed a hand to the earth. It pulsated, warm beneath my fingers and I heard Death, soft and fleshy, a guttural snarl in the fog, crash from the barn and enrapture the night around us.

©2003 Eric Grizzle

Eric Grizzle lives in Denton, Texas and attends the University of North Texas - majoring in English and hopefully attending graduate school next year for Creative Writing. He has had stories published on The House Of Pain, Savage Night and Dreadful Dreams.