None of the women had met prior to their imprisonment yet they were sisters of a fashion, bound to one another by persecution rather than blood and in their bizarre union they discovered a wondrous ability. Each woman stumbled upon her unique key and together they harmonized and sang into creation their new lives free of objectification and the tyranny of evil men.
On the very first day of May which was unusually hot for the season, the air was filled with the loamy smell of rain-damp earth. Birdsong twittered throughout the forest surrounding the secluded monastery and on its doorstep sat a wicker basket with a wee bairn inside. Within the folds of the baby’s blanket was note that read:
“This child, untimely torn from his mother’s womb, bears the mark of the beast. I have fallen short in my duty for I lack the courage to purge the world of this evil. Hopefully you possess the faith and strength to do what I cannot.”
The moment his father shut the light off and closed the bedroom door, the shadows caused by Evan’s nightlight started parting like so many curtains, allowing the denizens of the Nightmare Realm to cross over. The tiny room began filling with feral cockroaches, skull-deprived rats, soul-sucking bedsheet-wraiths, carnivorous plastic dinosaurs and a set of windup teeth that wanted to eat his face off!
Somewhere within the lowest depths of her delirium, Soledad heard a voice, raspy but not totally unpleasant, whispering her name and she fumbled in the darkness for what seemed an eternity until she finally felt the touch of a pair of lips to her own. She was greeted with a kiss to obliterate all others, full of passion and desire, one she would cherish and remember to her dying day, which unfortunately was that very moment. Death had come at last, and although life had abandoned her forever, the kiss still lingered.
The tickets had been sold and patrons rushed to seek their pleasures, some to behold wonders that defied the laws of science and the boundaries of imagination, others drawn by things supernatural and metaphysical, but one lone bedraggled man was unaffected by the Barker’s siren call.
He stood at the precipice of the Madd Carnival’s entrance, careful not to cross the threshold, staring at a sign that read:
His suit was threadbare, hanging off his unhealthily thin frame, and its pale gray color made his long features look sallow. He pointed at the sign and said, “I am here for this.”
“We’ve just opened, sir,” the Barker said, staring into the man’s faded blue eyes that seemed to be filled with more death than life. “You couldn’t have left a child…”
“No, I was left, years ago, and I’d like to see Madame Destiny, please.”
If the barker was caught off-guard by the man’s statement, he showed no sign, he simply said, “I happen to be excellent with faces and yours doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Neither does yours, so you can’t have been here long, but I’m widdit, you can bank on that. Or you can ask Madame Destiny, she’ll establish my bona fides.”
Widdit was carny slang used to let midway agents and talkers know that the person was with it, or that they worked at the carnival, so the Barker dropped the politeness act and asked, “What’s yer business, mack?”
“Recompense. I come to collect what I am owed.”
The booming, melodious trill of the Madd Carnival Barker’s voice traveled impossibly to all the neighboring towns and villages, rousing patrons young and old, which was basically anyone with even the tiniest smoldering ember of the youthful belief in magic in their hearts, from their houses and his witty banter delivered in poetic cadence, aided by the hypnotic designs sewn into his ostentatious suit, lured them all wide-eyed down the colorfully lit midway, like the rubes they were and most likely always would be.
In the month that shares its root with the octopus, where the days are flush with falling leaves and chilly weather, winds through tree branches scream “Yowza! Yowza!” announcing the arrival of the Madd Carnival which has appeared in a vacant lot from seemingly nowhere.
The wasp-Infused Shochu muted the volume on Hinata’s current situation and as she drank she dwelled in the memories of better, less complicated times while her subconscious worked feverishly to resolve the issue of disposing of the corpses of her unfaithful husband and his sōpurando lover.
It was a universally known truth that all things must come to an end, still Death never expected his own passing to be counted among these finalities, but now, in his remaining moments, he finally understood loss and cried blood tears for all the lives he had so callously taken.
Rory had the strictest of fathers who raised him to fear nothing he could name and he remained fearless until he met she who would become his soulmate, an unnatural beauty who set up her domain within the very heart of his nightmares and who had no given name.
MADD FICTIONAL 