Circus Boy - Chapter 2

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Taken advice in leaving a line in between writing. Tell me what you think

Chapter 2

Gingerly, I got up to my feet. Thankfully, nothing was broken. I stared wide eyed at my surroundings, drinking in as much as I could. I was in a long narrow alley.

Towering, glittering buildings were on my left and right, their black exterior cold and unwelcoming. Strange objects littered the alleyway, some familiar such as the battered dirty pink sewing machine, three old fashioned green telephones and an overflowing sodden cardboard box of multicolored rubber ducks, that were curiously growling - other objects I had never seen before, a peculiar cone-like apparatus., a round transparent sphere cracked down the middle so some of the cloudy substance swirling around inside it leaked onto the pavement, and many, many books. Some pages torn out, some scribbled in, some ripped to shreds. I had never seen a book before, stories were always told to me by my mother's mind, that was where I read from.

All the objects scattered around seemed unwatned and in poor condition. I knew better than to touch them. Instead, I craned my neck up to see where the dim red light filling the alleyway was coming from.

A green and yellow streaked sky met my eyes, with a round orb of glowing scarlet was centered. Orange clouds drifted lazily across, some in threateningly rumbling packs. There were brilliant pink stars, flashing and winking down at me.

I lowered my gaze, now horrorstruck. I knew this wasn’t home. I had once wandered outside the big top to follow a butterfly that had flown in before my mother had chased after me and brought me back in. The sky had been light blue then, with a whitish yellow circle suspended by an invisible string. This striped sky looked more like the canvas of a circus, more familiar to me but equally as strange.

But I knew I was outside. I could hear foreign voices colliding with each other. Shouts, screams and raucous drunken catcalls. I lifted my nose high into the air and a heave, musky perfumed scent filled my nostrils, making me gag and retch with a shudder. I started to panic and felt tears prick sharply in my eyes. I called for my mother, once, twice, three times. I called louder, tears now splashing onto my little velvet waistcoat that my mama ha made herself.

I fell silent eventually, listening for a reply. Nothing. I wiped y face with my tiny podgy hands and shook my curly hair out of my eyes. Glitter showered from my locks and I looked down to see that it looked as if I had bathed in the sliver dust.

I looked down one end of the alley, which seemed to stretch on forever, getting darker and murkier as the path went on. I looked towards the other end, I couldn’t see much from the think strip of red light but I could see silhouetted figures marching by, heads owed. The source of the voice was coming from there. I hesitated but then saw a pair off great yellow eyes watching me from the gloom. I suppressed a yelp of fear and hurried towards the strip of light.

The street I was in wasn’t much different to the alleyway, only without the scattered random objects and a lot of people. They were all taller than myself and dressed all in black, blue or other dull colours. I tried to catch someone's eyes, but their faces were hidden by masquerade masks which they held up to conceal their identities. The masks looked very grand, expensive and out of place compared to their raggedy clothes.

Lots of vendors were dotted up and down the street, each selling different products, very different from the vendors I was used to at the circus. Men in red and navy masks, crying out loudly to the crowd, were brandishing brightly coloured scrolls of paper, which they exchanged from the occasional person passing by with a small leather pouch containing a substance that was unknown to me at the time. Other people were buying from different vendors in the same way, unfamiliar foods in greasy bags and great cylinders full of a churning, dull green, tar like liquid that people were filling into crystal goblets (mostly chipped and dirty) and drinking from them, a grim expression on their faces as they closely studied the scroll they had bought or, if without on, their eyes darting about behind their masks, unwilling to keep any eye contact.

Everyone seemed to be in a sort of unknown panic and hurry, as if disaster could strike at any moment. I was completely ignored. I cried for help, but when people did bother to glance down at me, noses upturned, they looked at me as if I was a cockroach or something just as unpleasant; insignificant and unimportant.

When one man was kind enough to stoop to my level and smile warmly at me, I gabbled an explanation to him but he only shook his head in an apologetic way and shrugged his shoulder unhelpfully. I was too young to understand language barriers so I stomped my foot in a trademark youthful tantrum, thinking the masked man was being deliberately rude. His eyes were gentle behind his majestic peacock feather mask and he spouted a strange flow of words that I didn't grasp at all. Now I am fluent in Feeparle, I can guess what he must have been saying to me.

"Sorry, I can't understand you."

He was soon swept away by the jostling crowd of people. My heart was rioting desperately inside my chest, thumping fit to burst. I gave one feebler cry of help, ready to give up all hope when a harsh, hoarse voice spoke in my ear. To my delight, it was my home language.

"Stop screaming away in Russian boy, do you want to be banished?!"

It was woman speaking. I turned around to look at her and my jaw dropped. She was tall, I could tell since she was bent over double to talk to me. Her hair was straggly and unkempt, similar to the cat now winding around her ankles. At least, it looked like a cat...I tried to get a second glimpse but when I next looked, its great yellow eyes had vanished, but they remained etched into my vision. The woman grabbed my wrist.

"Well?!"

The hand gripping me was a faded violet colour, same as the rest of her face and skin, with green veins protruding through the transparent flesh, throbbing nastily. Her nails were bitten down to the bone. Her eyes beneath her black crow feather mask where light grey, shiny but misty at the same time. I gaped in horror at her, my doubts that I as in a sort of horrific nightmare almost confirming themselves.

I managed to speak at last, my lips numb from shock of the sight of this obscure woman.

"Russian is all I speak. Please help me, where I am?"

"Good heavens boy, anyone would think you were from Earth the way you talk!"

"But ma'am, I am."

The woman now mimicked my struck dumb gaze of shock; I knew it was the same since I could see myself reflected in her eyes. Without warning she gagged me, bundled my up and shoved me inside her black cloak.

I feel it is necessary to take a break here in the story. You have been reading for a while now and I have been neglecting you terribly, very impolite of me; only feeding you morsels of my captivating tale. I don't rag, it must be captivating if you have read this far. You most probably want me to continue. I shall. But first I must cease my rudeness. How are you, reader? Good? How splendid. I wonder who you are? Officials after me? Witless, innocent, mortal, mountaineers? A hawk staring blankly at this parchment messily strung together with a beautiful hair ribbon the colour of a perfect pearl without a clue as to what this jumble of letters us, only wondering how it was 'hunted' by a lesser than yourself or if you should attempt to eat it?

I highly doubt you are a member of average society, reading this book for pleasure. That would be absurd. Why, if this were to ever be published, so many secrets would poison this fragile world's temperament! I'd be thankful of my future suicide is this ever is read by any mortal and let the whole internation of my tale.

So anyway, back to important matters...

Are you sure you are alright?

Alright?

I'll carry on.

It all goes downhill from here though. Brace yourself. My story seems to have every element of a fairytale, but there is no happily ever after for a mortal stuck in an immortal world who falls in love with the wrong girl...

For this tale, is not element of cheeriness. It contains love, money and a family. The ingredients of happiness, yes?

Yet the fatality of happiness is weaved within.

Death, betrayal, despair and a cruel ring master.