The Carnival- A Mysterious Short Story that Inspires

Frazzle pulled his Tiger’s cap from his dark, stringy hair and placed it upside down on the grand piano. He sat on the mahogany bench and fingered a scale in A minor across the keys then winced. His right hand ached from the fight last night.

He frowned. Though the bleeding had stopped under the cloth bandage, the fresh teeth marks across the back of his hand stung, sending a sharp pang with every movement. The stray Border Collie he’d met as he laid on the freezing bench refused to give in until Frazzle tossed it a sandwich he’d dug from the trash can behind the burger joint across from the park.

As his stomach grumbled, he peeked around. Shoppers passed by and strolled either into the department store in front of him, the shoe store to his left, or the toy store off to his right. If they didn’t disappear into the stores Hackley Mall offered, they continued to the food court, mixing in with many faces that eyed menus and ordered Chinese food or tacos.

He sucked in a stale breath, played a jaunty melody, and sang in a light raspy voice:

Don’t need no college.

I don’t need no job.

All I got is a piano to please this mob.

Ain’t ate in days.

Get water in natural ways

All I need is my piano to make my worries fade.

He ended his tune with an ornate trill that rushed through his bony frame with the haste and bliss of a satisfying acid trip.

The small crowd that formed in front of him applauded just as he pounded the last chord. He smiled; happy he’d caught their attention. The mall bustled with busy Saturday shoppers, blowing Friday’s paychecks on electronics and cheap knock-off clothes and shoes that had been marked-up to the cost of a one-way flight to Toronto. Why not distract them by tapping a cheerful tune across the ivories?

An elderly woman placed a ten-dollar bill in Frazzle’s cap.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.

She nodded with a crinkled smile and limped on into the chaotic food court.

Los Angeles, here I come.

If he kept at this rate, maybe after a couple of hours, he’d make the hundred dollars for the bus leaving out of Kalamazoo that evening. No more scraping through frozen garbage cans or fighting stray dogs and raccoons for food or sleeping space. If he were to sleep on park benches this winter, he’d rather do it near the ocean and as far away from Michigan as possible.

“Good morning ladies and gentlemen. My name’s Frazzle and I’ll be here all afternoon playing songs from my childhood. Do you guys know Turkey in the Straw?”

The crowd murmured before a few people broke off, committing to their initial task.

“U — uh,” he said. “I’ll take a request. What do you want to hear?”

They looked at each other. Some people shrugged.

“Play, The Carnival,” a soft husk said from the crowd.

“Uh, I don’t think I — ”

He searched the crowd for the requesting patron. Hopefully, Frazzle’s droopy, glassy eyes could capture an ounce of sympathy. His tattered jeans, holey puffer coat, and dirty fingernails typically did the trick; but his doughy eyes and short ragged beard were the true closers.

But the crowd looked at one another, perplexed.

“Who — “ The words caught in his throat as the crowd parted for the requestor. Frazzle’s eyes widened. A rusted metal mask hid the man’s face. Sapphire eyes peered through the only openings of the corroded steel, and his dark hair shone as it laid slick back and tamed.

“Make something up then,” the man said.

“Uh. Ok.” As Frazzle bowed his head and searched the keys for inspiration, his wrists stiffened. “I — “

“Is it inspiration you need?”

Frazzle narrowed his eyes as his hand seared in a painful flare and new blood moistened the makeshift bandage. “Uh…”

The man pulled the zipper of his trench coat down his chest, showing the red of his turtleneck. Then he reached a pale hand inside his breast pocket and pulled out a glossy, red apple. He placed it on the piano. Frazzle furrowed his brow and cocked his head. Eight wilted teeth marks scarred the opposite side of the man’s hand.

As the man pulled his hand away, the sugary smell of cotton candy suffocated Frazzle, shoving a sickening nostalgia in his gut.

Some of his favorite times with Mom and Dad were nights at the summer carnival. He’d watch Short Finger Jack’s Piano Dance with a leaping heart and joyful eyes. Jack’s nubs trudged up and down the keys, making music that a deaf man would trade his sight for. Complex harmonies and mind-bending lyrics with a touch of synthetic jazz made him legendary. But perhaps the most interesting part about Jack was his silver mask, shiny in the lights, just big enough to cover the front of his face.

Frazzle’s heart leaped. Those days slid out of existence and questions like, “Are you going to college or the army?” and “The burger place on the corner is hiring. Want to check it out?” plagued Mom and Dad’s once loving demeanor. Frazzle was a musician dammit and no one would take that from him. Not even himself.

But this man before him couldn’t be Jack as he unraveled full length, manicured fingers from the apple. A heavy warmth encased Frazzle’s body. There was something odd about those scars on the patron’s hand. So odd that Frazzle gulped and jittered at the knees. Even the man’s eyes reminded Frazzle of the person he saw staring back at him in the shiny apple, or any mirror he stood in front of over the last nineteen years.

“Is that inspiration enough?” the man asked.

Frazzle nodded with a stiff neck, petrified of making eye contact with a stranger who seemed to be familiar, but he couldn’t say it out loud or to himself. Frazzle would sound like a madman if he tried.

“Then?”

Frazzle blew the jitters from his gut with a long sigh. He placed shaken fingertips on the keys, willing to play through the overwhelming bloom of aches in his hand. Music flowed and words rolled off his tongue:

A lone sassafras in the woods

I always knew I could

Be what I wanted to be

But just like death

Life hits you in the chest

And knocks you off your feet

Like the carnival in town

People standin’ all around

Waiting for the sad clown

To do his show

Then soon you’ll know

You’ll be laughing at his frown

But what is pain?

Is it the same as joy?

But what is joy?

So dead and coy

Just ask this man

Who’s still a boy

A painted smile

A hyper crowd

You can see their eyes for a mile.

A candied debt

And even yet

The constant feeling of regret

The carnival

The carnival

Look at how they marvel

The carnival

The carnival

They laugh and cry

As we crumble

His throat strained, confused about notes he’d never held or hit. His tongue tingled as it flushed out a possession. He tumbled from a head high as his mind resurfaced and planted him back in the mall.

An awkward hush circled the crowd which tripled in size since Frazzle began his tune. People stared, frozen in time.

“Wow,” a girl uttered before clapping. The crowd followed. Tears brewed at the corners of his eyes as they cheered. Onlookers turned their heads, curious about the excited ruckus.

He looked at the apple and picked it up with his battered hand. It glinted in the splash of sunlight that peered through the thick, rolling snow clouds. The skylight lit up and sun rays shone down on him as if the heavens were calling him home.

“Thank you, s — ”

A clapping, curvy woman stood where the masked stranger had been. Frazzle’s heart sped as he stood from the bench and searched the crowd. Nothing stood out from the busy wave of shoppers. No mask. No man who stuck out like an island in the ocean.

Frazzle slumped down on the bench. His tongue burned as if a mousetrap had clipped it.

“Do you have another container for tips?” a dusty-faced man asked. Over twenty people stood around, waiting for an answer. “Or, can you take this?” He pulled a twenty from his wallet.

“Sure,” Frazzle said, accepting the cash from his happy audience.

His mind reeled as they begged for an encore.

This is one of my lighter stories as I typically write stories of a much darker nature. I love this story because it’s what I came up with when I had a severe case of writer’s block. I shut my mind off, and free wrote. After having it edited, this is what I came up with. I hope you enjoyed it. If you like horror, suspense, and dark fiction, check out my horror and dark fiction books on Amazon:

US: https://www.amazon.com/K.-T.-Rose/e/B01N4T91M2

International: author.to/authorpageKTROSE