Carneville

Being immortal is not so bad when you live in a carnival.

The worst part about being immortal should be the dullness, but at the carnival, there is so much to look at. The tall people bring their littler people, which are called children, who do all sorts of tricks: they run mighty fast and drop glops of ice cream onto the ground and make screechy songs with their mouths that remind me of the jaunty music of my carousel.

There is weather and sky, too, and other exciting events, but really, I prefer looking at the people. They often wear funny hats and lead each other by the hand so that they don’t get lost. Sometimes they scream at each other or laugh so hard that even the tall people bend to the size of the children. One season, they brought real horses to the carnival too, ones that Handlers walked around while children swayed to and fro in the saddle, but from their looks I got the sense that the real horses pitied me and my friends. Or likely they were jealous of my plastic sheen and golden tack. Anyway, I haven’t seen the real horses since 1974.

When the carousel was installed, I glimpsed the gilded swirls and protruding light bulbs that edged the circular eaves of the carousel only in a blink of consciousness. However, I know this structure in all its magnificence because there is a picture by the booth where a young man called Attendant checks that the little children have permission to ride me and my family. The vetting could be a tad more rigorous, though. So often, when these children come to me, they drag sticky, damp hands over my shiny coat until it makes a squeaking sound or slobber melting sugar from candy-clouds all over my shanks. But Attendant is a good person. He always wipes me down afterwards with strong, gentle brushes and pats my nose after he is done.

Attendant is well to take such good care of me since I am the most beautiful of the horses. All of the other horses are jealous of me. I think it is because Painter – who is the most important of the higher beings that made me – made me a pink candy colour when all the rest of my family are shades of whites and creams and blacks. Painter gave me a golden tack dripping with rich red tassels – children love touching those like they were real – and an ornate feathery headpiece, like those that the Parade Girls wore from 1955 to 1969 when they pranced through the park in funny formations. The other horses have feathers, too, but none of theirs are blue.

There are dangers to this work, too. In the summer of 1993, it rained so hard for weeks on end that the ground turned into an ocean – like the one that’s painted on the carousel –, its treacherous waves licking me up to half-calf, and I could feel something splutter and spark in the Great Wheels of the World that make the carousel go around. The people carried away two of the cream-coloured horses. When they were returned, I could tell that they were different, because I had spent decades galloping in my up-and-down leaps behind the other one, and this newcomer simply did not have the same curl to its tail. What became of my old friend, that I’ll never know.

Then there was the awful child who snapped off one of my ears! Attendant attached it back on so I could be beautiful again, but that ear isn’t a part of me anymore. It feels more like a hat.

To tell the truth… I don’t mind the slippery, slobbering children in my saddle. It is an honour to carry them. Once there was a time when every time we ran our circle, there was a child in each saddle, but these days most of the horses gallop empty. But I never do.

Today is a grand day, though! I have not seen the park this vivid with life since… well, it has been quite some time, hasn’t it? The last day of season is often busy, but today is more festive than ever. Everyone is in a good mood which you can tell by how much they show their teeth, and even the tall people carry buckets of popcorn and great heads of cloud-candy.

The jingle of my carousel only stops long enough for the previous riders to slide off and new ones to mount in their stead, and there we go again, joyously leaping in our eternal circle. Today, all the horses have riders, and at the end of the day, even some tall people come ride with us. Some of them are what the people call Old. They don’t usually move as fast as the children but they are still fun to look at, especially when they have a stick or a chair with cart-like wheels on it. One of them is Owner, who I see all the time but who usually never rides the carousel. The tall people are too big for the horses, so they stand up and hold on and smile, even though it is not the proper way to ride a carousel.

Then the carousel stops, and I know from the pinkish colour of the sky that this has been the last ride. I sigh. It is nice to rest, but no-season is a hard time - cold and wet.

Owner stops by to caress my face. People change a lot: their clothes and hair and faces. Attendant changes all these things but always stays young. Owner, too, has changed much since she first planted me here, since although she has kept the same face, she has become Old.

‘You did well, old buddy,’ she says. I feel warm inside. Of course, I know I’ve done my job well. But is it so vain for an old horse to indulge in a bit of admiration?

Owner leaves, and Attendant and Maintenance prepare the carousel for no-season. On the last day of season, they always grease our moving limbs and apply anti-freeze to delicate parts, finalising it all by wrapping us up in rustling plastic blankets. To pass the time, I gaze at the sky.

Today has been such a beautiful day. I have made many little children happy, and many tall people, too. Soon, Attendant and Maintenance will turn off the power. It is better to be focusing on beautiful things like the sky and memories when they do it. I may be immortal, but turning off the power still makes me feel not-alive. Numb and dulled. When the power is off, it is harder to stay awake, and the world feels muffled. It feels… less.

When the switch turns off, I am still staring up at the purple sky, dreaming of the next season.

My family does not know how to speak to each other, but we find strength in silent solidarity, standing together against the elements. When it is no-season, I often doze off for days, sinking into memories of colour and sound, unless a particularly bad rainstorm or a rare bit of snow wakes me up. No-season is always hard. This year, the cold chips into me more than usually, because strangely, Attendant forgot to wrap the stiff blankets around us. But me and my family keep our heads high and dream a shared dream. When the ground softens and the trees blossom and the air no longer pinches, the people come back, and we will be alive with music and leaping again.

The trees bloom and the air softens, but the people do not come.

Then it is no-season again and I wonder if the others know what I know. Perhaps not – I am not only beautiful but also smart. I wish I wasn’t, because I understand that season will come again, but the people will not.

I was always grateful for Attendant when he wiped me down after storms and children, but had I truly been grateful enough? It must be a sign of a very soft life lived that this woe now strikes me so terribly.

Now I worry about things that I never knew could be a problem. The pole that pierces my neck has started rusting, and I feel the flakes tickle when they chip off. If wind blows wet leaves into my eyes, there is no one to remove them until the next gust of wind. I can feel vast islands of my shiny fur start to crack and peel, which puts me in constant discomfort. The day I notice that the sun has faded my vivid pink into a shy pastel, I cry because Painter, my maker, has abandoned me. I am no longer beautiful.

There are still many things to look at, but they are so dreadfully dull. I could not care less for the changing of sky, and weather only makes me depressed. Even the birds, which used to provide some entertainment when they swooped in to steal fried potatoes from people’s hands or scattered in terror of little children, are not funny anymore. I can see them eyeing the carousel, although they have not yet been brave enough to approach. One day they will build their horribly itchy nests on top of the steel beams and relieve themselves over my fading tack, and there will be no one to stop it.

I wonder where the people went. I have a reasonable grasp on the people’s language, and I sometimes heard Attendant tell the tall people that “people used to come from all over, but not anymore” or “I guess there’s more exciting places for a holiday”. I wonder if there are fewer people in the world now. I wonder if there are no more people at all.

Dreaming has become harder, but when I manage, I dream of sound most of all. The song of the carousel mixing with the music from other whirling, leaping things at the park – the ding-ding-ding of the big prize at the game alley – the static-laden announcements that I often did not understand but which tickled my ears pleasantly anyway. And the people sounds! Screeching, wheezing, screaming, giggling, crying, hollering, howling… Sometimes little children threw their entire bodies to the ground and wailed so beautifully.

I envy people, who can walk away to look at other things if they get bored. For several turns of a year, I have been staring at the same trees and the same sky and Attendant’s booth, on the side of which the picture of my carousel becomes ripped with weather and lovelessness. If only someone would come along and spark the carousel to life once more! I would give my beautiful, tasselled hoofs to be able to rotate half a round – or even a quarter – and look at a different part of the carnival.

Season is ushered in with big thunderstorms, the likes of which I have not experienced since mid-season 2013. I am not afraid of thunder, even when it booms so forcefully that the twisty pole in my neck vibrates against its edges. Even if it makes me wish Attendant had left us with the blankets so that I could close my eyes and pretend to be hiding while the storm passes.

Over the sounds of raging rain, I don’t hear the footsteps until they hit the floor of the carousel and rattle the whole structure.

‘Come! We can wait it out here!’

I come alive so fiercely it feels like the power has been turned on again. Electricity crackles through me and I am ready to leap, leap, leap again! The people are here! The people!

There are only two but it is a crowd to me. They are very different from the usual visitors: instead of vibrant colours, they have covered their bodies in long, black clothing, and they have painted their faces in big, exaggerated ways like Clown that sometimes passed by the carousel. But Clown was all colour and these people are black like birds. I cannot stop staring. They are tall but not Old. They are real and they have finally come back for me.

Both sit with their backs against the red-and-gold stripes of the rounded centre of the carousel. It is not the correct way to ride a carousel, but I will allow it this time.

‘So, this is the first time you have done this?’ one with short hair and stripey arm clothing asks. With those arms, I decide, she does belong to the carnival, even if she does not seem to enjoy colour.

The other one, with long plaited hair like a walking doll, laughs. ‘No, I used to do it all the time back in… well, the community there is much bigger than here. I’m just nervous. I’ve never broken in anywhere before.’

‘Relax,’ the striped human says. ‘This place closed down ages ago. No one cares enough to even have it demolished.’

Oftentimes at the carnival, I have seen people put their mouths together, which makes them happy, and also put their mouth to their carnival drinks, which also makes them happy. Never before, however, have I seen someone use another human as a drink. The striped human keeps her face against the neck of the plaited-hair human for a long time, and she tilts her head back so that I can see the trail of red liquid sap out of her. Sometimes little children leaked this kind of a fluid too, but that was always followed by a great deal of whining. It is new to see the look of ecstatic happiness on the plaid-human’s face.

After they are done, they stay a while, talking pleasantly even though the rain has ceased. I drink in every lilt and laugh like the striped human drank from her friend. When they scramble to their feet, I try to rein in the sadness. Perhaps once this would have meant nothing, but after the ordeals I have been through, this memory will keep me warm over the next no-season.

Then the plaid-hair human lays a hand on my face and I feel like I could crumble to bits and bolts from ecstasy. I quite literally go blind from happiness. I stop seeing so that I can focus on the touch better. It is cool and firm, nothing like little children hands.

‘You know, this would be the perfect meeting place for all of us,’ she says. ‘There hasn’t been a safe third space since – closed. They would come from all over.’

I wish I was a human so I could scream. But instead I just let the hot hope fill me. It feels much like when the power was on.

It is never the same as in the days of the carnival again, but it is good.

The people who come only come when it is dark, and colour never returns. But there is endless detail to fascinate in their dark attires, from buttons to shining soft fabrics to lace that reminds me of the ornamental eaves of my carousel. They do not quite know how to behave at a carnival, but they seem to be having a good time, so I let it slide. People of the old never used to put their mouths on each other with quite the same reckless abandon, and they certainly never used to bite and drink from each other. But everyone is happy again. They laugh, and often they even play music. Even if it is much more sombre than that of my carousel, I fondly start to think of their music as the carousel’s new spinning song.

I think they do roam around the carnival, but they especially love the carousel, and I am their favourite friend. They are always so nice, stroking my nose and petting my sides and sometimes they will even hop onto my back and cling to the twisty pole at my neck like in the old days.

Of course, I have not learned to leap again, but I can always dream. One time, a great big group of them attacked the carousel folding in giggles while one rode me, and they managed to push the platform for almost two rotations. Now I stare at the games alley and it is like seeing it for the first time. I hope they will push the carousel again soon.

The best part is that they come even in no-season. Fewer, for sure, but for them the carnival is open all time round, unless there is a particularly bad storm or chilly dark. It is actually quite nice to have some company in the dark time. Not that I would admit to being afraid, but in the past, I often tried to close my seeing and hearing when there were no people, because the quiet was very discomforting. Now the dark is my favourite time because my strange eerie friends come pat me on the nose and talk their human language to me.

Some of the new people still change, but many never do. I think they must be like me, made of plastic and metal and decorated in such ways by Painter. I wonder if immortal people and immortal carousel horses come from the same Painter, or if there are different ones. Maybe it is Painter or even Attendant who has sent them to me so that I wouldn’t be so lonely.

It is not so bad to be immortal when you are friends with other immortals.