The Sideshow of the Void

From time to time, murmurs and mutterings concerning the carnival spread amongst the houses of town like an unseen plague This signals the carnival’s imminent arrival. The carnival returns to town from the shadows of the backroads in random unknown intervals, except in certain dreams. Always presenting itself under a different name.  The whispers are never about the fact that it’s coming. But the whispers are about the carnival itself. And if you listen close enough, a few folks whisper about the thing within the carnival. 

The carnival has come to Balsam, a tiny town on Maramouth Island in downeast Maine, since the late 1700s. I suspect it is a traveling carnival. It’s held where the chapel of Saint Genesius once stood, in a meadow which exists between the ocean and cliffs on one side and the woods on the other. Built by French settlers, it mysteriously burnt down in 1760.  The debris was cleared, the graves from the cemetery relocated. Or most of them... a few folks in town were unable to locate relatives' graves, and that caused a real stir. The land was never used for anything but the carnival after that. The fog always gathers thick in that clearing, percolating like a mass of ghosts. Which was fitting, as the meadow was rumored to be haunted. 

I first experienced the carnival with my friend, Danny. I was 7 years old. I’d heard kids talking in hushed tones on the playground about the carnival. Or Singing verses like:

"I hate you, you hate me, 

Meet at the circus at half past 3:00!

Take you to the strong woman, take you to the clown

Take you to the sideshow and right out of town!”

Or things like: “The sideshow will snatch you away to the dark mother! To dance with the troupe and the clown!”

Danny’s mother dropped us off and told us she’d pick us up later in the afternoon. Neither his mother nor my parents knew about the carnival. They hadn’t been residents of the town long. Maybe they’d heard whispers, perhaps from a man on the street corner, holding a sign reading: “I Am Jesus”.  Or while driving, on some radio station, the static becoming a hum at the base of their skull.            It was a wonderful early September day in Maine, remnants of summer heat almost gone, and Autumn hadn’t quite arrived. Passing underneath the large monikered entrance, lit up with large humming bulbs, the ambiance and aromascape of the carnival assaulted us.  

We claustrophobically wove between the masses, and we partook in the rituals of the carnival: riding whirling attractions, smelling and tasting ungodly delicious foods purveyed from flashy booths, hearing music that sounded like a happy clown squeezed out of a tube of toothpaste, the carneys yelling “Step right up, Step right up!”. 

At some point, I detected a strange scent. In my memory, it was the smell of old, moldering things in the corner of an ancient attic mixed with the smell of 400 candles guttering out and being lit all at once. We both wordlessly followed it. That scent, or sense, of something outside of the carnival that made itself known. The object inside the object, a nesting doll. The shining shadow behind the veil. 

We went around the backside of the Duckshot booth at the edge of the row, and that’s when we saw it. A sort of makeshift alley was created by the thick wall of gnarled trees on the left and the multicolored backs of the game booths on the right. A tunnel; left-hand black, right-hand rainbow. 

And the end of it was the entrance to a strange, decrepit sideshow.

 I stopped dead in my tracks, filled with a sense of supreme awe and bottomless terror. 

The sideshow was familiar. Not from whispers I’d heard in town. In fact, I had never connected the whispers and rhymes of the children…to the sideshow. Or the diorama.

My family moved to Maramouth Island when I was six and my sister was seven. Her name was Laurie. Often told by adults that she was a precocious girl, my sister possessed peculiar proclivities. She would spend a lot of time in the woods, hunting mushrooms, pretending to be a witch, and playing in the tides despite my mother’s dissuasion. She also loved unusual dolls. 

Our parents tried to bribe our forgiveness for moving by getting us gifts. I don’t remember my gift. But she received a large, intricate diorama with matching dolls. The diorama was a carnival, made in the fashion of a sideshow type carnival from long ago. You could lift the roof off and play with the things inside. There were exhibits and corresponding dolls of the strong woman, the sword swallow, the laughing clown, the Freak Show, etc. Amongst these acts was also “Zelda the Fortuneteller”, who held a black crystal ball which lit up a wonderful purple when plugged in, along with other lights throughout. My parents procured it from a defunct oddity store in town.

The exaggerated style and unusual craftsmanship evoked such peculiar emotions in me. The dolls didn’t look extremely life-like. But the diorama, and the dolls inside… their essence possessed a dark, intangible element that made my skin crawl. Like when one witnesses a case of uncanny valley. Yet the sideshow diorama enticed me. Its presence enfolded me into itself.

It was a wonderful toy, a work of art. And she loved it.

A few months after we arrived in town, Laurie was playing alone in the woods on a gloomy day.  She loved those days when the fog enveloped everything, weaving itself between the trees like trickling milk.  She took a wrong step in the fog and plummeted off the cliff. They found her at the bottom, smashed upon the rocks. She’d fallen off the cliff near the meadow, the place where they hold the carnival.

 I knew when we buried her in Balsam that I’d never leave town. 

It sounds silly, but when I missed my sister, I would play with the diorama. The intricately made dolls and aspects of the diorama made me feel closer to her.

After her death, I would play with the strange figurines and diorama, assembled with such detail and care, and it brought me closer to her. 

And now before stood that same sideshow carnival from the diorama, as if out of a dream. 

I looked at Danny. He was dazed at the sight as if in a trance. We approached the sideshow, observing the worn banner and sign proclaiming that The Sideshow of the Void was right inside, flapping in the wind which had become cold. 

Upon entering, I felt wholly transported. The happier music faded, replaced by calliope along with an eerie violin accompaniment, which seemed to come from the shadows; a twisted and devilish tune, evoking some grotesque cartoon I’d seen on TV late at night. I felt like I had been transported into a different time and dimension.

I saw the firebreather. To breathe the fire, he would stick his head into a roaring open flame and take a deep breath. Then, smiling like the devil, he would belch out a pillar of conflagration. His skin boiled and burnt beyond repair.  

I saw a strong woman who pulverized decapitated heads, the blood, hair and brain-matter dripping from the head of her sledgehammer.  I saw the man who swallowed a sword, blood pouring out of slits in his throat as he spoke with the sword inside. I walked past the entrance to the Freak Show and The Museum of Other-Worldly Items. Despite my disgust, my morbid curiosity drove me further and further.