Carousel
“Immersion therapy” Dr. Thompson called it. Whoever decided the best medicine for confronting one’s fears head-on was humanity’s most proficient sadist, a stance I confided to my co-worker during our break spent behind the telling booths that earned me nothing but an awkward sneer in return. I understood his trepidation well. How was one supposed to react when you discussed with them your fear of the carnival? It simply wasn’t a fear a man was meant to have, but my pride was well-worn, far beyond letting beguiling looks wound me any further.
Despite Thompson’s best efforts at hypnotism, no amount of attempting to rouse sensory memories from the veritable bear trap that is my mind has borne any fruit. It’s been decades since that fateful day at the fair that I pushed out of my head as a child so fervently I haven’t been able to recover it in all this time, and I’ve spent many a self-reflective afternoon wishing my five-year-old self had the spine to soldier on, so that I could have a better shot at bunting without feeling a chill down my spine. Would that I found a way to go back in time, I would’ve joined my father in his attempt to throttle the fear out of me when I had an attack by the funnel cake stand. How dare I embarrass him in front of his “buddies from the plant” with my so-called “antics”? One could hardly blame him for throwing my confection straight in the trash.
Aldus, the co-worker I confided my situation to this evening past, decided he’d join me in my expedition. Where, you ask? None other than the site of this year’s Bartleby Fair, the same company that caused my meltdown as a boy. The haunting, jovial music, children’s laughter, familiar smells, all stimuli I’d been exposed to in miniscule doses through my sessions with Dr. Thompson. I thought I was prepared to experience them all in tandem, but as my companion could tell, I was still woefully unprepared. The way the sun beat down on my face more intensely than it seemed to his, or anyone else’s, just intensified the experience, and the heat was overwhelming. Aldus recognized this immediately. A creature so shrewd he could derive some amusement from my ordeal was always acutely aware of such subtleties.
“You aren’t looking so fresh, Claude. Where are those nausea mints you’re always eating? Don’t tell me you left them at the bank with your pride.”
I glared at the doll-like grays in his eyes with impatience, but found myself taken aback by something hidden in his words. The dizzying spells I was so prone to began when the fears did. Thompson predicted this. Only the genuine articles could trigger the recovery of what was lost, so the maze of mirth I now found myself at the heart of could only be navigated by sense, and not reason. “Spare me. I don’t need the damned things, and after today, I won’t take another ever again!”
Something in Aldus respected my foolishness. Not unlike the way a matador danced with his larger, more belligerent partner, which I supposed I was now. He acquiesced and returned to my flank, resigning himself to keeping watch on my vitals from a distance, giving me the room to work. I closed my eyes. Let the dehydrated taste of saliva in my mouth dominate my mind, and the world pour in from every orifice. From the congealed potion of sounds the fair had to offer, I tasted a familiar song. One that brought back the vision of horses marching in revolution, from which I had an internal, tactile perspective. That of a rider. I laughed, both at myself and the mound of earth I keeled over on during my state of perception. Was that it? The ceramic horses of a carousel were what I’d forgotten? The very root of my fears was a children’s diversion?
It was all so absurd, even I found it amusing, but Aldus was done jeering. His arms were wrapped beneath my ribcage and trying to pull me up off the ground, threatening to leave me if I didn’t gather my wits. I tried to speak and found the encroaching warmth of bile singing the back of my throat. Spewing black and passion, my antics, as my father would’ve called them, suddenly captured the attention of a pair of nearby constables. Aldus with his silver tongue tried to explain the situation to their scowling faces, strikingly unamused by the grown man getting sick in front of crowds of innocent families. They all wanted to take me away, but my work was far from over. Dr. Thompson would applaud this.
I wrestled myself out of all their grasps and stumbled, ran, sprinted for my life toward the source of that infernal song. They wouldn’t impede me from my breakthrough any more than I already had all these years. Finally, I’d be cured!
The sting of cold braced me. If I were to recreate that fateful day, I had to do so with painful accuracy. Children didn’t wear proper coats, blazers, or ties, and so it all came off and fluttered in the faces of the men chasing after me. Even now, I had to congratulate Aldus on his loyalty. I’d never called him a friend, but even now he was at my side, and what more meaningful bond could there be than the one that came from running from the authorities? I’d apologize for my behavior another time.
Horses stood in place; I recognized that the attraction was undergoing maintenance. Well, that just wouldn’t do. I yelled something unintelligible at my partner in crime, and by some miracle, he understood. Aldus took the place of the man at the controls performing its routine checkup and assaulted him, an act unlike anything he’d ever done in his mousy little life. Today, we were both making strides. The machine sprang to life as I climbed atop its platform, feeling the cold melt away from my muscles. Crowds gathered to watch the spectacle of the deranged man straddling a carousel horse as the policemen overwhelmed my partner. And they succeeded, but not before his final throe of resistance, triggering the malfunction being operated on. The horses stamped and circled with me in tow, faster and faster until the onlookers were naught but a blur of color. Wind burned at my eyes, my heart raced, and everything before me began to transform into wicked, unrecognizable shapes. And finally, I remembered.
My childhood delusions were dismissed as having an active imagination, but I saw it all again now. Fire, endless lakes of fire engulfing the souls gawking at me like an animal! This was Hell, oh, truly Hell! So long ago now, I narrowly escaped it, but the four horses had returned to their stable and brought me with them. The spinning stopped, and I saw it all as clear as day, and the lakes began to rise. The fair was gone, and I wished for it all to come back. Wished for the earth I’d gotten sick on, the safety of my tellers, for Dr. Thompson’s office, and found that they all appeared and melded into the scape before me!
They were all so at home here, then so must I be!