XIX
“What’s the first word in the first line, of the very first thing I say?”
The stress was mounting. In cramped little dressing rooms, scattered beneath the stage, tonight’s stars rehearsed their manoeuvres and magic. They rehearsed their jokes, songs, and expressions; and they rehearsed their closing bows and curtseys. Each cordoned off space was a flurry of desperate twirling and kicking, and manic rambling of opening lines, repeating the first words of their monologs and dialogues, over and over again.
“Pulley One. Pulley Two,” shouted Rex.
The giant was hunched over and hurling orders, insults, threats, and insinuation, preparing for The Ringmaster’s grand entrance.
“Pulley Three. Pulley Four,” he said, holding his little hands up, almost to the bottom of his chin.
His two crooked index fingers pointed upwards, as if he were disco dancing, or calling in a very small plane or mosquito to land. Everyone, though, regardless of age, sex, deformity or position, their attentions all hanged on the tip of his finger like an orchestra to their conductor, or a kitten, to an untied shoelace.
“At the very beginning,” boomed a low voice over a loudspeaker. “Before all things, there was….Light.”
The Big Top lit up and there, looking like the ass end of a half squashed Christmas decoration, dangled The Ringmaster, swinging in small circles as the four StrongWomen below, fought each other over equilibrium.
“Steady,” shouted Rex. “Steady. Even pull. Even pull.”
Slowly, the circles grew smaller and smaller until The Ringmaster’s arse was centre over his podium below. The four StrongWomen slowly lowered the cables, a fraction of an inch at a time. They eyed one another, from each opposite corner, and as strong as their arms were, and as mountainous were the arches in their backs and in the firmness of their stances, they all bore an incredible weakness, one guised as strength and grit.
The second Rex turned his attention away from the cables, peering out into the audience, one of the StrongWomen, catching the mocking stare of another, tugged on her cable, once and then twice. And this made the other pull on hers. Above the podium, in the spotlight and under the eye of the audience, The Ringmaster started to swing back and forth and jerk violently.
“What in tarnation’s?” he cursed to himself, almost dropping his cane.
And it was only a second later before the other two StrongWomen joined in on the tussle, fighting to throw the others off guard, and to prove to Rex and themselves, that each was strong enough to do the work of four. Their massive biceps pulsed, and veins popped from their arms likes cracks in the sidewalk. Their eyes glared, and their lashes, like swinging fists and cutting swords, lashed away, spelling out, in some kind of Morse code, words of war and provocation.
And out under the point of The Big Top, The Ringmaster flung back and forth, and round and round, and most certainly out of control. “Rex,” he screamed. “What in tarna….”
Rex swung his attention back.
“Pulleys,” he shouted. “In line, now!”
The StrongWomen each pulled on their cables at the same time and at the same measure of strength as if this were something they could quite have easily done the whole time. Rex eyed each one, and each one dared not look back, insisting on thousand-yard stares, focusing one the gentle pull of the cables and wires in their sturdy hands.
It was quiet beneath the stage again; uncomfortably quiet.
“Ready lights,” said Rex. “Ready, sound.”
In the centre of The Big Top, The Ringmaster, now no longer spinning out of control, slowly descended down on to his podium which was made out of a dozen shoe boxes, and hair from a shaven gorilla.
“Cue light,” shouted Rex.
Light flooded the podium.
“Cue sound.”
And a clap of thunder sounded, as The Ringmaster struck his cane in the air.
The Tiny Tattooed Man flexed his muscles, and, as if his gesture were a cardboard sign that asked for applause, the audience erupted in generous ovation. The Ringmaster, up on his podium, was nearly overcome with emotion. He held himself together, though, as he spoke.
“Welcome,” he said. “To salvation. I am The Ringmaster; your guide, your instructor, your guru, your bishop, your mother, your father, your physician, your maestro, your penis, your bicep, and your breast. Let us start tonight’s spectacular,” he said, holding his cane high in the air, “by recanting, as one, the story of The Sun of God.”
Under The Big Top and beneath the stage too, be they coloured and tasselled performers, or out in the bleachers, grey and colourless townsfolk, one and all repeated in harmonic unison, the story of The Sun of God. It only took a minute or so, but each spoke with such fervent passion as if every word had been a stone that had paved in their own lives, as if the story had once been theirs. They spoke with such clear and precise diction and with such zealous address as if it what they were saying were the absolute truth. And nobody was looking at their prayer sheet or story books. They spoke off by heart as if this story were the only one that they had ever told as if it were the only one that they had ever known.
“Wonderful,” said The Ringmaster. “Absolutely wonderful. If God could hear you now,” he said.
“Which he most certainly can,” mouthed Rex, copying The Ringmaster as he spoke.
“Let me ask you,” said The Ringmaster. “How do you feel?”
The audience sat dumb, unsure if they should respond.
“I’m serious,” he said, jumping up and down on the spot, and throwing his jacket wildly into the audience. “Right now, how do you feel?” he shouted.
Beneath him, The Tiny Tattooed Man stuck both thumbs up and nodded.
“Fantastic,” shouted the audience, all at once, their thumbs sticking up.
“Fantastic,” he said. “Do you have doubt?”
“No,” they shouted.
“Do you have fear?”
“No,” they shouted.
“Do you have emptiness, loneliness, and despair?”
“No,” they all shouted, smiling madly.
“Then tell me,” said The Ringmaster. “Do you have love?”
“Yes,” they all said, rousingly.
“I’m gonna ask you again. This time, I wanna hear two yesses. The first one is for me, and for the second, I want to hear a resounding yes, for you. Affirm, baby, affirm. Now tell me, do you have love in your heart?”
“Yes. YES!” they shouted.
“I said, do you have love!”
“Yes!” they all shouted. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. We have love, we have love, we have love.”
“Yes you do,” he said. “You have love, love in your hearts. And you have love, love in your eyes. You have Light, Light in your souls. And that Light is love, and that Light is God. You have God inside of you. He is inside of us all. We are one, and together, we are God.”
The crowd erupted in cheer.
“What is God, I hear you ask, outside of a proposed idea? Is it a figure like I? Does it dress as I, and make appointments as I do and do its best to keep them? Does it wear holes in the knees of its ideals? Does it constantly outgrow its own self? And can it fly, and walk through walls? What is God?”
The Ringmaster took from behind a small curtain, an even smaller black box.
“I have seen God; thrice. It would do neither of us much good for me to try and describe its essence and it appearance, as you would, say, a small child, a ripe apple, or your biggest regret. For in this world, our minds are not fit to comprehend anything outside of our conscious stream, just as our ears can nary distinguish the subtle inference in a dog’s bark. And just as a two dimensional being could never comprehend or even envision your three-dimensional height and breadth, seeing only the shadow of your instep, neither then could you, or any of us for that matter, in this three dimensional plain, imagine or envision God, who in a higher dimension, looks, behaves, appears, and is spoken of, in what can only be regarded as sheer absurdity. To th
e two-dimensional being, that can only see lines, nothing has form, only shape, and therefore, you, in your three dimensional plain, do not exist, even though, we know, so ubiquitously, that you do. And it is neither absurd nor is it in any way, magical. But how could one prove that the third dimension exists? For we know that we exist, but on a two dimensional plain, you are not you, you are a line; neither fat nor skinny; and neither voluptuous, waif-like, nor broad. Just as, if God were to come to us, in this three dimensional plain, we would see and know it, as no different to anyone of us, and our logical minds would cry foul and charlatan, for our rationale, though not knowing what to expect, would be expecting the absurd. And a man or woman, or even a goat for that matter, would fit finely into our governing logic as of being common, ordinary; and any link to divinity – preposterous.”
The stage Light then shook, as if rippled by an invisible wave.
The Ringmaster smiled.
“I was getting to you,” he said, as if the shaking ripple was growing impatience, and the Light was a man. “Firstly, though, before I introduce you to a four-dimensional being, let me prove to you that the fourth dimension is real. Here before me is what appears to you as an ordinary box. It is, though, a portal or a window if you will, to a higher dimension. Not the dimension of God, but of one that is hidden so meticulously inside your own. I will, to prove that dimension is real, attempt a feat impossible in the third dimension, and perform it in the fourth, where the impossible and the absurd are as common and uninteresting as in our dimension, for example, tying one’s shoelace, or answering a telephone.”
The Ringmaster took from beneath the table, a rabbit and two sets of pliers.
“I will now ask someone in the audience for a ring, or a badge, or any artefact for that matter, which is distinguishable, and undeniable as being yours.”
The troupe walked around the audience and eventually, one of the coloured people took from an old lady, a locket that had, inside of it, a picture of the old lady’s late husband.
“Thank you,” said The Ringmaster, taking the locket. “Now, our logic tells us that rabbit can be two things, it can be a rabbit, or it can be a meal; and the same for these tools and this trinket. They can be of purpose, or not. But a rabbit cannot be a locket, just as a locket cannot birth a rabbit. Of course, you say. The idea alone is absurd.”
The Ringmaster smiled.
“Absurd then, in our dimension, is common and expected in the next. I will prove to you, the existence of the fourth dimension, and in doing so, the existence of God, and of our love and our healing word, by taking these four objects into the fourth dimension, and returning them back as one object, as one being.”
The audience sat in silent scepticism, as The Ringmaster took the three objects -the rabbit, the locket, and the two sets of pliers - and reached into the black box with both hands. He closed his eyes as if shutting off his three-dimensional senses, those that would try to imagine and rationalize where his hands were, and what they might be doing; rationalize, and fail mind you. He switched off every sense and allowed his hands to act upon their own accord as if each limb were a body with its own mind, and it’s own conscious attention; an idea that was ridiculous to ponder, yet where his hands tinkered, absolutely sound.
“Now,” he said. “Before I return this being to you, I remind you, that in the third dimension, this being will not exist, not as it did in the fourth. But it will prove to you, the mechanics and architecture of what you cannot comprehend; that what you do not know, and what you cannot believe as being true, exists and is patently real. Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Prepare to marvel.”
He took his hands from the black box to the estranged marvel of one and all in the audience. Though it was still and not alive, The Ringmaster held in his hands the rabbit or at least the body of a rabbit. Where rabbits feet would have been, were two sets of pliers. And where its head should have been was the locket, which when opened, showed the smiling face of an old man, a smile his grieving wife hadn’t witnessed since they were both younger than their dreams and expectations.
What was strangest of all, though, was that there were no joins. This was not some Frankenstein monstrosity. There were no stitches or kinks, bend, folds or breaks in the rabbit’s fur, or in the items that protruded from its body. Each looked as if it had once grown as naturally as the rabbit’s fur. As absurd as it was, and though the rabbit was quite clearly dead, it appeared as if it had been born, and lived a full life this way. There was not a surgical mark on its body. And just as looking at a skeleton or a cadaver, one could safely presume that in its life it did walk, and talk, so too did looking at this fallacious marvel, one assume that it did once run and hop, and so too did it cut wire to sneak through farmer’s fences, and then, cast insult and provocation in a tongue that farmer could understand, with a face that he could remember.
The crowd erupted in manic ovation.
“Now,” said The Ringmaster, serious. “Light. We have assumed, our entire existence, that something that existed in this plain before us was as ordinary and innocuous as we ourselves. And this is Light; or The Sun of God. God is here, or its child is, I might say. And Light is its appearance to our rational eyes. Just as your presence in your bath tub or in a small puddle might make a ripple that is felt by any insect or fish whose home is inside that puddle, pond, or tub; so too does the presence of God appear as a ripple in our own dimension. And just as the fish or the frog might accept some invisible force or wave as part of its world, so to have we, accepted Light as part of ours. Light that exists, even in the vacuous realms of space; which travels through all things.”
The Ringmaster put away the black box and stood with a pendant in his hands.
“Troupe, please, if you will,” said The Ringmaster, ushering a host of coloured performers out into the bleachers.
The performers did just that, rushing to each seat and sitting by, beside or even on, the laps of townsfolk, holding their hands and smiling at them, just as they were being smiled at themselves.
“We are all family now. And as our brothers and sisters, we offer you a present,” he said, as each performer took from their pockets a silver thing and pinned it to the chests and lapels of each townsfolk. “These pins,” said The Ringmaster, “They are our sigil; the symbol of unity and belonging. It is important that you keep them close to your heart, as if your life depends on it, which it most surely does. Never lose them, never take them off, and never let them out of your sight, for they shall always remind you of salvation, and of the sacrifice of The Sun of God, the eternal sacrifice that Light has made for you. I love you all, my children. And now…. Let us start the show. For your first act, and for your entertainment, I present to you, the art of, ‘Man wrestles alligator’.”
As man and alligator stared one another in the eye, so too did a young girl to a charcoal portrait of her mother, a young boy to the star-like splotches of blood on the palm of his hand, and a father, to his own reflection, as he stuffed a roll of cotton into a jar of kerosene.
But it was a bearded whore who was wreaking the most havoc of all, sitting in tears on the edge of The Ringmaster’s bed, with a refuse of papers scattered about her feet, and her nervous and tremoring hands, clinging to one in particular.