Tuesday 29 May 2007

ASBO-Boy - The show must go on...

Omen stared at his face in the mirror. The scar had lessened over the week and a half since the run in with the Elementals. They said it was something to do with being an Other that upped his metabolism and recovery, but it still looked angry and sore. The skin was beginning to bunch up and seemed to glow its ugliness. With a sigh he plunged his fingers into the white greasepaint and began to apply it liberally to his face until it looked like sticky marble. Locus stood behind him with a comb and began to part his hair down the right hand side with gel. He was wearing a thick, old fashioned schoolboy’s uniform with cut off trousers knee-high socks and sandals.

“See? It’s gone.” Locus patted him on the shoulder and adjusted her glasses on her nose. The greasepaint made him look like a ghost. It was an eery effect, and to be frank he was looking forward to having a growth spurt, then he’d have to think up a costume that didn’t emphasize how young he looked.

Locus was faster at getting ready than the three boys put together and was in full Cartographer get up long before the others. Omen watched in the mirror as Swarm rubbed dirt into his pin-stripe suit and trilby – he was meant to look like a trendy tramp; Spout was walking around the place in a pair of hideous sea-weed swimming trunks and was attaching multi-coloured stick-on fins to his blue, scaly flesh.

Omen had been practising for a few days a routine that included falling ladders, black cats and a plethora of triple-sixes. The clowns, apart from their make-up, were dressed up as normal people in suits and dresses. Omen would walk past and he’d use his powers to knock over the ladder or make the cat bristle up and scream before tripping someone up and so on, and so on. Swarm’s act was well-oiled and down to a fine art; he and his hordes of cockroaches, flies and spiders would create patterns in the air and write messages in webs. Spout performed like a human dolphin from a round pool that was wheeled into the circle. They’d have given Omen more time to practise, but the lion-tamer had to pull out because of a torn ligament. Routines were shuffled, rotas changed and Omen was brought in because his performance would be relatively straightforward.

Briefly, before he walked on he saw a flash of the future. The people were clapping and, ironically, there weren’t any disasters. The moment passed in a haze and before he knew it he was back-stage taking off the greasepaint with a sponge. Soon after, a lump of soaking seaweed shot across the room and landed on the edge of the mirror and began to drip. Omen watched in the mirror as Spout strutted off towards his chill-out tank in the corner. Locus appeared behind Omen. She was smiling, just about to go on and dressed in a long coat. Compasses, telescopes, measuring tapes hung from her neck, under arm was a theodolite and stuffed in every pocket were maps. With her short hair and round glasses she looked every bit the tomboy wizard. “How was it?”

Omen smiled, the ability to string a sentence together was still alluding him. She returned his grin and walked off to take her place. He was fully changed into his rag tag get-up when Swarm appeared to a tumultuous round of applause. Swarm and Locus exchanged a high five and she disappeared into the main tent at the call of her name.

“Mission accomplished,” he muttered as he released the insect kingdom from its telepathic hold. There was an audible scuttling sound as they all escaped into the woodwork. He wandered over to a fridge and brought out three bottles. One was sea-water, another was pond water and the last was a bottle of beer. Spout appeared and hopped up onto the make-up table and gulped down the sea-water. Omen looked at the beer and wondered what to do with it, Swarm opened it for him and set it down in front of him. Omen nodded his thanks as if drinking beer was the most natural thing in the world to do. There was another flash and he realised he wasn’t going to like it – but that meant he at least had to drink it. Grimly he braved the fizzy, dry concoction and clinked glasses with the other two. It would take some getting used to.

Later, they were sitting on the roof of their trailer watching the sun go down. It disappeared over the sea wall but still cast a significant red glow across the sky.

“Do you wish you were doing something normal? Like school or something.” Locus wondered aloud.

“Nah,” Omen replied, staring up at Venus as it glowed low in the diminishing light. “One person’s normal is another person’s weird.” He added sagely. The others chuckled.

Omen thought back to his dreams and wondered what he’d been consistently returning to over the last few days. The kids trapped underground. The other day they’d seen the whole area closed off while there was a minor earthquake. The caravans had all shook and Omen’s worries seemed to lift, but the prophetic dreams were becoming a burden. He wanted people to know.

“Hey, guys,” he began, “I have something to tell you - ”

Locus put her hand on his arm, “It’s okay, you don’t have to say.” She smiled at him with a benign look of knowing that just confused him. He carried on, with the heat spreading across his scar in uncomfortable waves. “I have these dreams – about the future. It comes with the territory, I suppose, but in them I see real things, real places. Or at least I think they are.” He said, sitting up. The others were lying back, quiet.

“I know what you mean.” Swarm said, passing him another beer. He was feeling light-headed and flushed already and accepted the bottle without thinking twice. “Sometimes I see things that feel out of place. Like they were put there, you know?” The others mumbled their agreement. Omen looked to each of them, “Really?” They all nodded. A weight seemed to lift off his shoulders. Spout was looking off into the middle-distance, the light glistened on the soft blue scales on his arm, “I dream of the sea,” he muttered, “More than normal.” He blushed. Omen looked down and considered what to say next. “I dream of people. Real people; people I’ve met doing things that scare me. A couple of nights ago I saw them trapped underground. The thing is, I think it actually happened.” The others looked at him, they weren’t surprised or curious, they just seemed to understand, and that scared Omen more than anything else.

3 comments:

Quoth the Raven said...

My, how disturbing that sea is getting, eh? Are they all going to drown? I suppose they are really, global warming and all that jazz... and you call me a hippy...

Good installment, it's a nice light break from the heavy-dark-doomness of the rest of the story, whilst staying quite tense and prophetic. It's perfectly weighted and balanced. Well done!

Steffan said...

Cheers. I was wondering whether this would be a bit too random, but I did want to document how the Circus worked.

Jester said...

I like Omen- and it was good to have a recap of the other Circus characters. I do get the impression that the sinister Sea Wall isn't going to hold up and there's going to be a watery disaster at some point. This would probably be for the good- give them a Noah-like chance to rebuild things. I get the impression that this is all something to do with this Pantheon, 715 and Dream-time.

Out of curiosity, what circus trick does a Cartographer do?