tooth soup

photo credit: kevindooley

Note: Originally published in Voiceworks.

The train hushes to a stop, reeling itself in against the steel rails that guide it. Midway down the carriage, the doors crack open and the flickering halogen light that has stabbed through my sleep licks against the shadows outside. I get up, wipe the muck from my eyes with the sleeves of my rough cord jacket, and step over to the doors where the ticket man is waiting. Where a stern expression should be, his face is inset with a wooden box constructed of a number of polished hardwood jigsaw pieces varnished together and gilded gold at the edges, and a small brass crank  that juts out of the centre. I pass him my ticket, crumpled and filthy from its stay in my jeans pocket. He brings it up to his box-face, running it underneath the handle as if he were savouring the scent of a fine cigar. Apparently satisfied, he inserts the end of the ticket into a slot in the side of his face and winds the handle carefully to produce it again on the other side. He plucks it delicately from the opening and runs it underneath his handle once more, before handing it back to me with a clicking of heels. I take it carefully from his fingers; it is straight and new again, with the addition of an intricate stamp of a spiderweb, along which an ink spider is scuttling back and forth. I nod at the ticket man and step clear of the doors. They shut behind me with a clean snap, and the train accelerates slowly away, whistling steam into the air as drags itself into the gathering darkness.

In front of me is a wrought-iron gateway, lit by a single light globe out of a string stuck to the side of a ticket booth. Below the arch are a set of turnstiles; rust comes off on my palms as I slip through into the fairgrounds. Dusk has settled, but enough light remains to see the signs advertising sideshows and skill testers. At one time their garish hues and promises of prizes may have demanded my attention, but they have since aged to sepia tones that shuffle nervously in and out of my field of view. I wander past the skittle shots and the pop-gun racks, around the abandoned fairy floss machines, and toward the only attraction that I have come to see.

The freak show’s sign has embraced the decay of the fairgrounds. The grime that edges the lettering and the cracks in the deep crimson paint announce louder than the brightest of neon lights that this is a place of unease. At its entrance stands another ticket guard, similar in every aspect except his face, this time replaced by a metal ammunition box, riveted and stenciled with a string of five numbers across the brow. I offer up my ticket and the guard snatches it from my hand and crumples it up, squashing the stamped spider in the process so that its innards drip black ink onto his  uniform. He raises the crushed ticket to where bristle-filled nostrils surely would have been and seems to breathe in deeply, rolling his head back to face the stars. When he looks back at me, there is an accusation standing between us; one that he cannot pronounce and I cannot fathom in the gun metal grey. I dig in my pockets and retrieve a fountain pen, and then the crumpled ticket from the guard’s hand to locate the smashed body of the ink spider. It is missing four legs, and its guts have spilled from its body to create an empty ellipse centred in the web. I carefully fill its abdomen back in and add a few clumsy lines for its legs. After a few seconds, it starts to move around, scuttling lopsided down the paper to the edge furthest from the guard. I offer the ticket to the guard once more, who now takes it carefully in thumb and forefinger. Like his wooden-faced predecessor, he slips it into the slot at the side of the box before cranking the iron handle three times to pop it out at the other end. The ticket reappears with the spider absent, instead its misshapen image is creating a web in the top left corner of the guard’s faceplate. I nod and take my ticket back, moving through the curtained entrance and into the show proper.

Inside, three exhibits stand in front of me, all covered by red curtains. Attached to each set of curtains is a stained rope, waiting to be pulled to reveal whatever weird creature trembles beyond. The ground is covered in straw, moist and decaying. I pull the rope dangling in front of the first exhibit, and the curtain falls apart to reveal a girl seated on a stool. From the flow of chestnut that obscures her face and winds its way down past her breasts, I realise this must be the first time I met you. You were watching birds squawking in the middle of a lake that I jogged around, through a set of old binoculars. Your hair has changed colour a thousand times since I’ve known you, but that first shade was always my favourite.

The girl is close enough that I can reach out through the bars to pull the hair back. As I do she turns, looking out at me with eyes replaced by burnished glass lenses and focus dials with copper grips. She adjusts them, tilts her head curiously, and as she speaks I echo with her your first words to me. Do you think you could try to run quieter? You’re upsetting the teal. I had sat down with you on the bench, my runners silenced on the velvet grass, and waited for an hour until you had finished your notes. Then, as I closed my eyes,  realising the beauty and stillness of the lake, you packed up and left without a word, without a number.

The lenses dim and I close the curtains gently. The middle cage is revealed with a tug of the rope’s frayed end. Standing within is a girl, close to a woman now, with blonde hair that rises in an aggressive ponytail. Her breasts jut out proudly above a sports bra, and her legs are an assembly of clockwork and dials, humming slightly with contained strength. This is the second time we crossed paths. It was at the same lake, though you were anything but sitting down. The birds had long since flown, and the lake was a mirror, set in an arrangement of emerald grass dotted with tiny diamond dew drops. You passed me three times, overtaking the lumber of my drink-sore body, each time looking over your shoulder to check my reaction. The fourth time I sped up, pushing my body to bursting point and painting the edges of my vision red with the effort required to match your charging pace. Two whole laps I completed before I fell, faint with tinges of black overtaking the red, crushing diamonds beneath the heaving of my chest.

The girl in front of me smirks and repeats your next words to me. You’ll never be able to catch me if you can’t even keep up. I say now what I could not then, when my voice was taken from me by my lungs’ desperate action. You are not one to be caught. She laughs and laughs and I pull the curtains closed before moving to the final cage.

A woman sits on a stool, black hair sliding straight past her shoulders. I remember now how you wore it like a widow wears her veil. I do not know what it was that you were grieving, but you stood in the grass by the lake, shivering below layers of silk and cotton. I came to your side and waited for you to speak. When you did, it was with a voice filled with relief and happiness. Noticing my confusion at your tone, you explained. The world is a whole lot warmer with someone, even a stranger, standing beside you. The woman in front of me stares directly into my eyes as she shifts the layers of her dress aside. Embedded in her chest is a wooden door; with a click she unhinges it to show me a gap where a pump must have connected the valves that gas sadly in its absence. There is no hesitation in my movements as I open my shirt to reveal a similar door. Where her gap would be sits a heart-shaped fitting made out of brass, with two filtered tubes either end and a grated window in the centre. The latches release and I pass the fitting through the bars. It fits smoothly into her chest, a ruby glow shines through the grate, and she pushes the door closed again before smiling a small smile at me. The final curtain closes and I turn to leave, light with the absence of a broken heart. When I pass through the exit door I find myself back at the train station. I look back to try and catch a glimpse of your broken former selves but the fairgrounds are gone, and there is only the click-clack of the approaching carriages.