Midwest Carnival

The carnival came to Kansas in late spring, its sawdust fairway extending half a mile along the prairie.  Weathered tents popped up like blisters on the hardpan.  At night, gaudy neon lights illuminated the Ferris wheel and whirl-a-gigs and rocket cars.  Barkers coughed out hoarse invitations to see freaks from the four corners of the world.  In the funhouse, wavy mirrors distorted the images of carnival patrons into grotesque figures.  A few of the patrons entered the funhouse, but never exited.

An old woman with gray hair, bent over and frightened, hurried back to the dirt parking lot on the perimeter of the fairway, mumbling "This is an evil place.  It's the devil's playground."  Ride operators, many of whom had been released from prisons throughout the Midwest, stared blankly at the woman as they pulled the creaky levers that made the world tilt on its ear, the glowing rides throwing passengers high into the dark night sky.  Inside a tent, a magician pronounced incantations that made babies cry and widows weep.

In a tent at the end of the fairway, a young boy peered at a globe, the kind one usually sees at Christmas time, little flakes of snow falling on a house in the woods.  But this globe was different.  The boy saw a tiny figure inside the glass, an old woman with gray hair.  Though frozen in time, she was headed for a parking lot next to the Ferris wheel.

~William Hammett

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