The Provenance of Monsters Read online

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  Bora kept an eye on Marcia’s lime-green tent from his post accepting tickets for rides on the small, toddler train that meandered through the fairgrounds. He hadn’t chosen to be moored to the operation of a carnival ride. He had hoped to devote his full attention to Marcia’s tent. Only another operator failed to appear for early afternoon role call, and that short-handed Mr. Finnegan’s carnival. Hands vanished often from town to town. Bora wouldn’t have usually betrayed a clue of temper at the loss of carnival worker. Such surprise resignations were certainly not worth the emotion that might float to that wagon of horrors and feed the monster swelling within. Yet that day’s shortfall came at such an inconvenient time, and it forced Bora to take a post attending to the toddler train, where he needed to stand upon his toes and peek through the passing crowds each time he wished to look upon Marcia’s green tent.

  “Mister, do you have any kind of helmet for my boy, or do you all just throw the children onto that train without any kind of protection?”

  Bora smiled at the woman and stole a glance towards the green tent. He was worried. Marcia shouldn’t have admitted both of those boys into her tent at the same time. Rules posted at that tent’s counter clearly said that only one person at a time could look upon the unicorn. Bora devised that rule, hoping that he might limit whatever negativity might be exposed to that timid creature struggling to morph into something magical. Bora believed that thoughts of ill moved more quickly when people grouped together, and so he tried to force visitors to enter the tent one at a time, hoping that the impressions of guests would lean towards the positive if they stood alone before that small animal. So Bora worried, and he tried to keep his thoughts from brooding so much on his anxiety.

  “Hey mister, I asked you if you had a helmet for my boy.”

  Bora patiently smiled at the mother, whose boy seemed to stiffen with fear as Bora pressed his voice box to his throat. “Train moves slow.”

  “Are you telling me that makes it safe?”

  “There will be no hurt.”

  The woman raised an eyebrow. “I won’t forget that promise. I’ll shut this carnival down and take the clothes off your back if anything happens to my boy.”

  A deep growl reverberated through the carnival just as Bora’s hand reached to accept the woman’s ride ticket. A snarl hissed above the sound of the carousel organ and fluttered the plastic pinions and flags. The young boy flinched, and he turned and pulled his mother away from the train in direction of the carnival’s exiting gate. A silence fell upon the grounds, and Bora’s face paled. He thought he felt some kind of an aftershock vibrate through the soles of his boots. Bora pushed his way through the stunned crowd that separated him from Marcia’s tent. The monster in its wagon continued to grow, and the sound of its discontent stunned the fairgrounds.

  “Go! Leave us alone! Just go!”

  “Not until we get our money back!”

  Bora’s pained heart further deflated as he ducked into the tent and found a sobbing Marcia so tightly embracing her small animal. She buried her head into the unicorn’s gray mane and pressed her tears into the creature. The laughter told Bora of the tragedy. The horse’s mane turned a shade darker. Bora saw the creature shrink in Marcia’s arms, and he saw how the unicorn turned its eyes toward the rear of the tent, how it was too frightened to gaze back at the pair of boys who pointed and laughed at it. Bora’s spirit dropped. Hope left him. Though he no longer possessed a voice, and though to do so would only feed the monster expanding within its wagon, Bora wanted to scream against the world. That horse would again fail to transform into a unicorn, and all the while that terrible thing in the wagon would continue to expand.

  Bora’s hands hook when his throat spoke into the voice box. “No more!”

  Children tended to cringe at the sound of that mechanical voice. They often flinched at the sight of Bora’s dark eyes. Children would often turn quiet when they looked upon Bora, go still as if they had fallen upon the most ancient and tallest tree kept in the heart of the dark forest. But those boys didn’t flinch at all when they looked into Bora’s wrinkled face. They didn’t shake at the sound of Bora’s buzzing voice. They only laughed a little louder.

  “That doesn’t look anything like a unicorn!” Greg laughed at the old man.

  Kyle pointed at Bora. “We’re only asking to see some kind of proof. We’re asking to see some provenance.”

  “And if that girl gets so upset when people ask for it, then she shouldn’t be trying to trick people out of their five dollars,” Greg added. “Instead of crying so much, maybe she should stop and think how we must feel.”

  Kyle agreed. “Really, sir, I think we’re the ones who deserve an apology. This isn’t the only time we’ve been victimized at this carnival.”

  Bora closed his eyes to resist the swell of anger boiling within him. Had that monster not been moaning on the other end of the carnival, he might’ve pummeled those boys to the ground, and he might’ve kept smashing at their faces until his hands hurt too solely from the damage he dealt those fools who destroyed his hopes to grow the unicorn. Bora wished he could close his ears as easily as he closed his eyes, for Marcia’s sobbing made mastering his anger very difficult. The unicorn wouldn’t achieve its potential for another season, but Bora couldn’t allow the monster to achieve its own. He should never have carried those magical beings to a country whose guts soured on so many feedings of cheese-slathered nachos and jalapeno poppers. The land lacked the empathy and grace needed to nourish the unicorn, though it had more than enough jealousy and spite to make the monster swell. Bora realized too late that the unicorn’s chances to thrive had been better in the darker places of Earth, that he should never have taken that orb away from the jungle.

  Bora opened his eyes and saw that the smirks had only stretched further across the faces of those boys.

  “I show proof,” buzzed Bora’s voice.

  “What about our money?” Greg asked.

  “Double what you gave,” Bora answered. “Follow, and I show you proof.”

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