the carnival

Madini the ringmaster once told me that when the father of
psychotherapy, Sigmund Freud, first visited the United States, he
rushed to Coney Island to see a garish amusement park called
Dreamland. That's because Freud knew what any child knows:
carnivals are just like dreams. But Freud also knew that the real
purpose of a dream is to contain the inner wild.

I saw the sign in bold red and blue letters FREAK SHOW. My
heart beat faster and faster as my excitement grew. As I entered I
clutched to my mothers hand and realised that I was afraid. As if on
que a clown dressed in a purple jumpsuit with orange duck print and
red hair stepped out of the shadows and said "come on little man,
give me the tickets! Don't be afraid. None of it can hurt you! Not
really!". "I'm not scared! Are you a real clown?" "I dunno,
are you a real boy?" he joked. "Hahaha! Of course I am! I'm
Jazan and this is my first carnival ever!" I said as he lead us
through the crowd of people, men on stilts, men with freakishly long
arms and bearded women. He lead us to a huge Ferris wheel. As we
climbed aboard he said "Ho-Ho! Jazan the fearless! Step this way
and see the world! Hold on tight and mind your mother!" we went up
and up and up. When we got to the top, we could see the whole
carnival. "Wow! It really is the whole world!" I exclaimed. "Only
part of it, sweetie, you will see more of it on the plane later--just
like last time." Everything was so colourful, I barely noticed the
rain getting heavier--until mother said it was time to go.

"I want to live in a carnival forever!" I said to which the
clown replied "You got it! Come see me in about fifteen years."
The clown was so colourful, in barely noticed the grime under his
fingernails or the rips in his greasy costume.

We raced through the bright lights, through muddy puddles, from
one dream to another.

It was a long flight across the subcontinent and the schedule was
tight but the carnival so seldom came to our little home, my mother
didn't want me to miss it. After all, I'd been on planes before,
lots of them. "I still can't believe I really saw a clown and a
strongman and went on a Ferris wheel!" I said. "You're a little
piece of sunshine in all this gloom! Now hurry!" she was wrong. She
was the sunshine, and not just a little--she was all of it. "Can
we go back mom?" I asked. "I don't see why not. Now buckle up.
The captain says it's going to be a bumpy ride"

It's an animal thing, feeling safe with your mother. Biology
compels a sense of serenity. Human or dog, cat or tiger.

The plane wobbled and creaked like the old
Ferris wheel. I was startled once or twice but mom smiled and
comforted me. I didn't even think for a second that anything could
really die. For a moment it felt like the Ferris wheel has just
stopped at the top of the world. The same heavy rain. The same
silence. The same red and yellow lights. The same spinning view all
around. The only difference, really, was my mother's scream. They
didn't last long though--with a crash and a rush of water, the
ride was over and I was forced out the exit. One lightning flash was
so bright; I saw my mother's hand under the water. It looked like
she was vanishing behind a dark mirror, into a dream. And like I
said, dreams are all about containing the wild. For me the sun had
gone out but I didn't understand it yet. I was crying, screaming
"Mother! Come back! You said that we could see the world. That we
could go to the carnival again! You said..." To my surprise, in the
middle of my rage, pain and confusion, something tickled. The
pleasant tingle melted into nausea. Since the crash my body had been
going into shock and I hadn't noticed, but my body did. One of the
tiger cubs was wounded. Our blood mixed. I died that night. And
whatever was left inside me was invited to take control.

"come on, little man, give me the tickets" I heard as the
clown threw a dark shadow over my body "Don't be afraid. None of
it can hurt you, not really" he said and skipped into the forest. I
had no control over my body. It stood up by itself and followed the
clown into darkness

"Muddy ground makes perfect prints. I knew there was a survivor
from that plane wreck. A child! Those tiger cubs probably shredded by
now. Sorry I wasn't there to watch. What a treat that would have
been. We'll find his bones soon enough though."

But he didn't find me or my bones until much, much later. Time
warped us like a funhouse mirror. The wild stretched and thickened
us. My new brothers became more like me, I more like them. So we made
our way in a motherless world, living beneath the so-called higher
thoughts of men. Three orphans, one heart, no fears, no worries. But
by then I learned what I didn't know as a child--that all things
end, that even the wild could be pierced.

"Mr Victor, come quickly! There's been a tiger attack! Two
gazelles, dead! Eaten!" yelled Zulu. "Something got inside my
land without me knowing?" They walked over to the place where my
brothers and I had killed the gazelles. "Look at teeth marks on the
gnawed bone. And there are three sets of prints. Three tigers!"
exclaimed Zulu. "No. Two tigers, yes, but something else too!"
said Victor as he walked over the muddy ground, "These prints are
bipedal, maybe even human. Could that little shit from the plane
crash have survived all these years?

Though my days were spent free in the wild, my nights were
tormented. The carnival was no longer like a dream, it was the
dream. The clowns and magic performers laid bare as freaks. I tried
to hold the line between reality and fantasy, but I heard my mothers
voice and weakened, giving things a chance to slip through. I heard
the clown again, telling me that it's time to see the world. Tok
and Roar heard it too. So was it real or did my brothers hear it too?
Get out of my head. What do you want?  Your head? Funny, I thought
it was mine. Can you prove it's yours? Do you have a receipt? Go
away clown, or I'll have your head too. Ha! You wouldn't know
what to do with it. We would! We would eat all the little bits of
flesh and keep your skull as a drinking mug! You kiss your dead
mother with that mouth? If this was all just fun and games, talk like
that may be fine, but this is real! Real? Now mind your
mother." Mother?" Her hand floated in light, returning the
same way it'd vanished. The line between us wavered, warped,
bent......................and then shattered as the bullet tore past
me. Again, my mother was ripped from me. Again, I almost died. The
clown was right. It was time to see the world, and see it for the
beast it was. I heard Victor yell, "That's the first time I've
ever missed, tiger boy! I swear it will be the last!"