Carnival of souls

April 29, 2006 at 3:36 am (Uncategorized)

Look carefully at the following figure and you might surmise that the Pink Panther spent the last 30 years in a basement. Good work, super sleuth! This is correct. This once proud fellow has been down with the spiders and mold for three decades, enduring bitter winters and stifling summers in the dark. He was found one recent weekend in the basement of my childhood home but now he resides with me. And wait until you see the after photo. Old Pink has undergone reconstructive surgery to replace foam in his neck and legs and soon a dose of stain remover will restore his luster.

Why, you ask me, in your gore crow voice? Because the panther was a coveted toy in my childhood and it is not good to discard such an icon a second time. Plus, the pink beast was obtained through a bit of luck and some fluke of physics. Mainly, my brother won him by tossing a dime onto a glass plate and my, how I hated the son-of-a-bitch for it. I spent every dollar and every dime I had trying to win a pink panther of my own but could never duplicate his feat. I think this somehow effected my emotional development and resulted in the fine, neurotic person you see before you today.

Whether or not the reanimation of the Pink Panther will bring about a flood of good fortunate and a new appreciation for simple joys remains to be seen. But it serves as a fine segue into the matter of carnivals. Which, incidentally, were also largely responsible for my development.

The carnivals contributed to my growth chiefly because they are creepy. But in addition to that, I had a terrible encounter with a dead woman at one. No, really. It was at one of my beloved carnival freak shows that I stumbled on THE WOMAN WHO HAD BEEN BURIED ALIVE.

She was kept in her original coffin, but a pane of glass replaced the upper lid so that you could stare down onto the horrified, skeletal face of premature interment. Bony fingers were hooked into claws and appeared to scraping at the lid of the coffin. Hollowed eyes stared up in terror and the rictus mouth seemed to shriek. Try as one might, a person above ground will do a poor job of imagining the mortal agony and horror of being confined alive to the grave. The corpse in the coffin at least provided some insight through the unspeakable, frozen expression about her features.

I stared down at that woman for a full five minutes and then wandered away in a daze. If I were Jim Morrison, I'd claim that her frantic spirit leapt into mine and for all my life I've been wandering around with the soul of a very old woman. But that would prove detrimental to my already beleaguered reputation, so I am not going that route. In fact, I'm going no route at all. My only ambition was to write non-stop for three minutes or so and regurgitate the last day's thoughts.

Do with it what you will. Clutch on to the Pink Panther concept and tell me about your childhood toys and adult good luck charms. Share your thoughts on the carnival, such as the time you rode the zipper too many times and puked right on your date's head. Or tell me how the freak shows twisted your mind, as well. We'll start a self-help group for victims of carnival trauma. I think we're allowed to drink at the meetings.