Wizards and Lizards

I. The Storm Abates

Gaia rises, yawning. On her breath a wig of many colours drifts. Rising and falling, it comes to hover playfully above the ground. A sickly threadbare thing, its tentacles snare on a bramble neck, and held fast it billows like a forgotten empire's insignia.

Two clowns stand amongst the chequered ruin discussing the events of the night before.

Broken beams bore the fallen tarp. Striped flags, hours ago streaming, lie trampled, marking fool's graves.

The circus was in town. Attendance quickly became a matter of great social import. Event of the year they said. Best do since the hog festival yessir, everyone agreed. With lanterns they had stalled the night. Acrobats whirled like adjuring dervishes above the main thoroughfare. Children and adults alike, awed by their death defying feats, hummed approval. Superstitious elders shooed the advances of gypsy clairvoyants. A quintessential night at the circus. And then the big wind came.

The two clowns agree that throughout the preceding evening a tense atmosphere pervaded behind the curtain. Many spoke of ill-temper, and it reflected in their performances. To the trained eye, the spins were less graceful, fire eaters had lost their appetites, and strongmen felt weak. One Adonis admitted lifting a feather would topple him.

Nobody thought to tell the rabble, so of course nobody noticed. Every performance landed, to the typical chorus of drunken cheers and the sloshing of Hogswiper gin, served in enormous mock-Grecian jugs.

When a bear in Spring awakens, a sepulchral silence descends upon the forest. While he slumbers, the glade seems made for the rodents carefree sidle. Alas, blissful days must end. It's an unmistakable silence which announces imminent something. Something is about to happen. A similar hush descended on the acrobatic prophets and their zealous congregation when the first rumblings of the tempest announced itself. A distant whipping howl, that of a dread wolf formed of air.

First the tarpaulin shifted in gentle waves, but as the tempest strengthened the dome swayed uneasily. In a chaos of splinters, the central support toppled gracelessly.

Last they remember before everything went tits-up, the portly ringmaster 'Mystic' Phil Bernhardt had taken to the elevated platform where Horace the seal usually performed, raised a cone to his lips and began orating. The clowns found common ground, agreeing his words went thusly; 'Ahem, ladies and gentlemen. We're altering tonight's schedule in light of imminent adverse conditions. We hope that you will not begrudge Bernhardt's Mummers too harshly. We can't control the weather, yet!'

'Get on with it!' someone shouted from the crowd to a murmur of agreement. 'Is there danger?'

A panicked citizen bounded through the tentflap to announce a hurricane forming nearby. Ending his grim portent white-faced, he had slumped over.

'And then shit hit the fan.' says Bozo, the taller. He recalls calming a riotous crowd. Orders were to stop people lifting the flaps and slipping out. 'I was shaking my hands.' he continues, staring dejectedly at his novelty foam gloves. 'It was chaos. People screaming. I saw one man pushing his wife and children back, shouting I'll apologise in heaven, Deirdre.' He lights a cigarette.

'Think that's bad?' questions Shiree, the dumpier, egg-shaped one. All torso. He smiles a smile that says 'two steps ahead'.

Unlike other members of the troupe Shiree imagined himself an independent contractor, replete with unique gimmick. He fashioned himself a fortune teller from the sands of Old Arabia, capable of incredible magical feats and precise forethought in the form of prophetic dreams. It was all hokey shlock. A dash of fairy tale, a sprinkle of Arabian Nights for exotic flavour.

Men in groups get their licks in. Shiree then was an enormous sugar cube in the world's largest cow field. He did himself no favours, purposefully spurning traditional attire for a silk waistcoat, red as hilted rubies with curling blue dragons stitched from nape to collar, supposedly imbued with great arcane power.

'The man who made this' he would slur in his cups 'was more evil, cunning and brimming with avarice than all the world's empires in a line.'
'You must be a mighty man to steal a warlock's vest' the men teased. The wearer brought their wildest desires to fruition by envisioning their intent in the mind's eye before speaking the magic words. So he said.

Evidently the garment had some power. Shiree appeared contented. He spoke of Persia with rolled r's in company, but derided peers in a Brooklyn brogue.

'I saw this dame right.' Shiree continues. 'She's screaming her head-off and pulling at her hair, shouting for James - some moke. At this point I'm thinking James probably scrambled sharpish. As I'm heading out I suddenly get to thinking maybe it's a lost kid wanting his ma. So what do I do? I go back. Nice guy, eh? What do you care. I go over and say lady, you need a hand and she's just screaming and screaming. I offer a smoke. I say we can call someone on the payphone. Zilch. Left her there. Fuck her and fuck James I really can't stand that attitude. What's she shouting at me for? I didn't crush her kid's skull. I mean, am I on fucking trial here?'

Bozo exhales through his nose and extinguishes the cigarette underfoot. 'Fucking hell, Shiree. You're not so jolly for a clown.'