Ineffable

LVII

  The Young Cripple swung like a bent and crooked lampshade. In the audience, the drugs had started to take effect. Bean could see how the front three rows across the entire Big Top had begun swaying with the girl, back and forth - left and right. Their eyes glistened like moonlit ponds. They looked like collectible ornaments, shoved inside people’s faces.

  Soon enough, Bean was sure, they would be mined.

  The Young Cripple had already begun the story. Bean knew it so well. Everyone knew this story. There was not a being in the omniverse that could not tell it word for word, and that did not follow in their own minds - or whisper it quietly, as it was being told to them.

  It was a beautiful story, it was. It was simple, square, neat, and clean. It was entirely uncomplex and could be read by a child with no less sophistication or inspiring intellect, as by a grown adult or a righteous theodolite. Its words were like tiny pills that did not catch on the tongue or upset the predicament in the pit of one’s stomach. It had as many words as it did pages, and in them, as many wicked villains as it did, fearless and hallowed heroes and heroines. Just one look out in the audience could prove, undeniably, how good this story was. It had such a reverent following. It was a shame then, as Bean thought, where it was leading them to.

  Bean crept up behind The Young Cripple as she spoke to her audience.

  “The imperious figure’s heart was betrothed with desire,” she said. “A simple kiss would not suffice.”

  He looked at her, not as a girl, but as a being of Light. She hanged there like a star, but one that had yet to shine. She had yet to open her eyes.

  “There is no Light in your eyes,” said Bean, taking a small pistol from his bosom.

  He was pointing the gun at The Young Cripple’s head, but he spoke to God.

  “Delilah,” shouted The Ringmaster, storming onto the stage. “What in tarnation are you doing? Stick to the goddamn script.”

  Though his beard was a rich as hers, it was the look in his eyes which in the end, gave him away. Bean pulled back the hood and exposed his face. His eyes were less like windows now, and more like shut looks. They reeked of inaccessibility – of non-negotiable and irreconcilable reason. The Ringmaster’s, though, were like two gaping chasms. They weren’t so much windows to the soul as they were cheap Perspex lining, and like the man himself – bendable, breakable, and indeed willing to cooperate.

  “Who are you? Where is Delilah?”

  “She is dead,” said Bean.

  The look on The Ringmaster’s face said it all. His very heart sank and; were there an open wound in his body; it would have bled out entirely, leaving his care, compassion, and heartfelt obsession to spill all over the floor.

  Out in the bleachers, the drugs had indeed taken a swarming effect. The entire audience were now shaking and convulsing where they sat. Their desperation, though, was not in their impending deaths, but in having only heard the story barley half way through.

  “Finish the story,” shouted one of the townsfolk between a choke and a purge.

  The Young Cripple was waiting for her cue. She hung there, watching the deaths of all those people, thinking of them as being saved.

  She said to herself, “Lucky them. What a relief that it’s over.”

  As The Ringmaster wept, mourning his dear love, he slowly undressed until he stood there, centre stage, with nothing but his bare skin. “Child,” he said, in a woman’s voice. “What are you thinking?”

  “God?” asked Bean.

  “It is I,” she said.

  The Young Cripple shivered, hearing her mother’s voice.

  “You are a child of Heaven, yes? Then why are you here?” asked God.

  “Chance,” said Bean.

  “There is no chance,” said God. “I have eliminated all facets of probability.”

  Bean removed all of the bullets from his gun.

  “You and I are integers,” he said. “We are interchangeable. We are moveable parts. We are rearrangeable. And like words, we are merely tools of definition. But we are not only open to chance, we are at its whim and mercy when we are at our most helpless, and we are at its splendour and magnificence when we are defiant and full of praise. Chance is the invisible and immeasurable constant which inspires us to evolve, and to never lose our passion.”

  “What do you want? A better position, more title, more worth? I am the creator Heaven and God almighty, I can give you what you want.”

  He smiled as he opened the gun’s chamber and loaded two bullets. One, an arborous bullet, made from the bark and semen of The Demon, and the other, a bullet made by the hand of mankind, in reckless defence of its fears.

  “One of these bullets will make a martyr of this child, thrusting her into her fate. And the other will not. It will end her, Heaven, and your reign.”

  “What is it you want?”

  “All I want is a chance,” said Bean, spinning the chamber and aiming the gun at The Young Cripple’s temple.