It is, in every manner, an imposition upon the cities it welcomes itself into.
When town, building, or merchant ordinances are inevitably broken, mayors and police become strangely encumbered by the weight of fresh income from unknown sources. And even if the good virtue of local authority prevailed and police came to shut them down, the operation can be packed away and flying through countryside in as little as three hours.
The owner has a monopoly over the railways and trains from which it departs and arrives.
But an emergency such as this has occurred only twice before.
“How?” you might ask.
The public does not know. The media makes unfounded guesses. Police and state authorities are often too embarrassed to make statements.
Their tents are worn—black and grey with crimson flags—and speak of a time before our early 20th century, though their likeness is available in no history books. Biographies of P.T. Barnum do not anticipate the gothic transfigurations and circus experts are baffled by the efficiency by which the tents are erected.
Crowds often gather to watch the building process, a performance in its own right. The quiet, flitting figures in dark dress who haul out the tents, stands, equipment, gates, paths, rigging, electrical systems and displays, do so with an eerie silence. With a speed of machines who know no different. They slink behind corners, appear between glimpses, and can often be spotted at the tents’ highest peaks without safety equipment.
It is not clear that they are human, but nobody has the gall to suggest otherwise.
When the process concludes, citizens marvel with a curiosity matched with hesitation. A budding fear. The longer they observe the lean, black canvas spires, the more fascinated they become. Lanterns of wrought iron hang, sometimes inexplicably, at the entrances, on the sides, throughout the carnival grounds, and even the tops of tents.
The lanterns, alone, are enough to entreat the attention of countless onlookers.
They glow with amber, gold and silver, illuminating tents such as Damned Divinations, and The Apocryphal Acrobats. Or, if one is feeling hungry, the Cryptid Concessions where arachnid fritters are deep fried beside caramel popcorn smoked to a charcoal appearance.
But the grounds are not bleak and empty despite the dark designs. Even from afar you can discern aerialists unraveling from their silks between tents. A juggler balances on a tightrope between the Menagerie of Monsters and the Enchantress’ Asylum. Fire eaters cavort along the paths beside dancers, contortionists, and card manipulators. Near the entrance, a jester sits atop a three-headed lantern post, welcoming guests and observing the growing trickle of visitors wandering in from London’s outskirts.
Perhaps most baffling is the massive rigging overshadowing the entire spectacle, a gigantic skeletal network of steel. The series of poles with foundations in the ground are not for decoration, but utility. Swinging from it at any given time are several flying trapeze artists, whose safety nets are nothing but the pointed tops of tents and the steadily bumping crowds below.
From a distant apartment window, one might realize, the longer they focus on the spectacle as a whole, that what it appears to be and functions as, is a web. For the unsuspecting visitors lured by the tickets advertised at no price at all, they are drawn to it like flies.
The question remains, what will happen when they are caught in its entrancement? Should they remain stuck too long, what will come to bite?
