Monday, March 30, 2020

By the Light of the Silvery Moon

The crowds attention veered away from the mud wrestling Medusa women for ten seconds to view the cracker shaped explosion in the sky above the tent. The same set of circus workers quickly flapped the roof back down after the display, and from cleverly devised pockets in the flaps rained down individual serving packets of Ritz crackers, as Cyan began singing "Puttin' On the Ritz" to a cacophony of noisy synth background music.  The crowd amusedly caught and snacked on the crackers and returned their attention to the mud wrestling pit only to discover that the Gorgons had been replaced by the band Cracker, who interrupted Cyan, Black and Magenta with their hit song,
"What the World Needs Now" as Smitty made his way down the stairs from the snack bar with a flimsy plastic serving tray of nachos and back to the center ring.  David Lowery appeared annoyed and smug, and once they finished only half the song, he could be heard muttering,
     "I can't believe we've resorted to this..." as he loaded his guitar out of the mud pit, inadvertently knocking over a mic stand.

     The sound of crunching Ritz crackers was all that could be heard for a couple moments, until Smitty announced, with fake cheese sauce dripping down his goatee,

      "AND NOW!!!  
        FROM THE CAVES OF COLDEST AUSTRIA!! THE SHARP SHOOTING PROWESS OF JENS THE WEREBEAST!!"

As Smitty said this, several circus clown types rolled out a dozen or so 6 foot tall targets, and from the right of the bandstand, a slightly emaciated greyish man in blue coveralls moped out with a fishing rifle and stood at a meter long piece of black gaff tape on the floor.  He had a small microphone clipped onto his lapel and a sad expression in his eyes.

He spoke.

"A long while ago, before the current era, I hunted in the Carpathian mountains for weary straggling travelers.  Sometimes for sport, I would shoot them with this antique Scottish fishing rifle before transforming from my human form into that of the man-wolf and ripping their throats out,"

Old ladies gasped and a child or two began to cry in the stands.

"However," Jens continued, "I no longer am that person.  It is a new reality now.  I have no desire to eat human flesh, although tonight I will, under the full moon, transform for you and perform a little target practice." 

     Far above the crowd, a couple of same said circus personnel pulled back only three of the ceiling flaps to reveal the full moon, which had only risen partway into the night sky and was rather large.
Jens cocked the rifle before removing his coveralls.  He was completely naked, but it didn't seem inappropriate, because immediately his human form began to morph and thick dark gray fur sprouted from all over him.

    Cyan looked at Black, who clicked his sticks together four times as the band kicked into 
"Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon.

Then Jens started shooting.


No comments:

Post a Comment