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This story was first published in ATC's collection A DESPERATE, DECAYING DARKNESS, from Wildside Press. The following is an excerpt.
THE JUGGLER(Excerpt)
by Adam-Troy Castro
He dreamt he was walking alone in a dry riverbed just south of town. The night
was just cold enough to raise goosebumps on his skin, and just warm enough for
the mild exertion to damp his limbs with sweat; the sky was crisp and filled with
thousands of stars, all of which shone with a clarity that Billy had never seen
before. He knew this was a dream because the stars were all moving in little circles,
like toy cars running on tracks: and the circles were all linked, joining in each
other in their orbits, dancing together in patterns so intricate that Billy almost
hesitated to look at them, for fear of accidentally jarring their fragile beauty
with the weight of his own gaze. But he also knew that this was also far more
than a dream, because he could feel the breeze against his skin, and the sensation
of gravelly earth against the soles of his feet.
When Billy met the carnival-colored man, standing in place at the riverbed's lowest point, he understood that it didn't matter whether this was dream or not; either way, he was actually seeing the Juggler himself, at the place where'd he'd decided to spend the night. He had not made a camp for himself; he hadn't spread out a bedroll; he had not eaten and would not lie down or even sit. Instead he just stood in place at the gully's lowest point, where he would have been totally submerged had the river still been alive to claim him. And there he juggled. He juggled as the stars danced and he juggled as the clouds rolled in to veil them and he juggled as the rain came down in great freezing sheets and he juggled without pause and he juggled without rest and he juggled without once dropping the balls that forever leaped from hand to hand to open air: and though the water came down hard enough to leave him standing in a muddy puddle up to his knees, his colorful painted makeup remained as it needed to be for the performance yet to come.
And then the rain stopped, and the water receded, and the carnival-colored man noticed Billy for the first time. There was something awful about the way he looked Billy both up and down. Billy felt himself measured, judged, declared an insect, reduced to less than nothing. He stepped back, his heart pounding. The carnival-colored man took one step after him, and in a voice like burning wood, nailed Billy with a single question: "Have you ever carried more than you could hold?"
"What?"
"Have you ever carried more than you could hold?"
Billy didn't understand what the carnival-colored man could mean. "I'm sorry...I don't..."
"Have. You. Ever. Carried. More. Than. You. Could. Hold?"
Billy got it, then. It was another way of asking him if he'd ever juggled. And, in fact, he had. Suzie, who had a way with such things, had taught him the basics when he was five. He practiced from time to time, and was good enough to keep a set of beanbags in the air for a minute or more. Bragging about his own rudimentary skills in front of an unabashed wizard like the carnival-colored man seemed like ridiculous egotism, but he couldn't lie in response to a direct question, so he coughed and said: "Yes. I have."
The carnival-colored man threw the spheres in his hand so high that they became twinkle-dots, like the stars. They burst into flame as they came down, burning like miniature comets; he caught them with no difficulty and flung them back into the sky, where they joined the other dots circling around in the night. And then he stepped closer to Billy, and he asked the question again: "Have you ever carried more than you can hold?"
Billy tried to retreat again, but this time he tripped on the muddy earth, and fell flat on his back. He was too paralyzed by fear to get up again: he could only watch with wide and uncomprehending eyes as the carnival-colored man rose from the riverbed and danced toward him, without once blinking or breathing or steadying himself against the ground or in any other way revealing the presence of anything vulnerable or even human behind that permanent mask of greasepaint.
He cried: "I don't know what that means!"
The carnival-colored man towered over Billy, and whispered: "You will..."
© 2000 Adam-Troy Castro
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