Professor Paragon wasn’t your typical carnie. Tall, thin, with silver, flowing locks and a matching goatee, he dressed in black, with a flowing cloak and silver jewelry like something from an Erroll Flynn movie. Dashing, the chubby housefraus would say. A man’s man, their husbands agreed.
He had a gentle voice, and I’ve always had a big mouth, so I got the job of shilling for him, drawing in the willing crowds. Just because I’m full of hot air, that doesn’t make me a liar. That’s important, because you need to believe me. It’s a matter of life and death.
Mostly death.
I think it was the gleam in Professor Paragon’s eye that most attracted the crowds. It wasn’t until later that I realized it wasn’t a twinkle of humor at the fools or a spark of fellowship or humor. It was hunger. An angry sort of raw, feral hunger.
Our outfit hooked up with the Ringling outfit that summer — no, it was a show almost as good, but it wasn’t them. I have no call to tell you tales. The circus folks adored Professor Paragon and the booth — and the hand-over-fist money he brought in. They tolerated our shabby tents and phony freaks just to have, as the banner proclaimed, “The Paragon of wisdom and knowledge.”
Like its namesake, the Paragon booth wasn’t your typical guess-your-weight, guess-your-age set-up. It was a dais that had a midnight-blue canopy covered with mystical symbols in silver paint, held up by slender silver rods. Those were carved with weird patterns that never made sense — like a dream you can’t quite remember.
Big canvas murals of Celtic stones, Mayan pyramids, Transylvanian castles painted like fever-dream fantasies surrounded the booth, and the professor used to eye them. Daydreaming like the rest of us of all the places he’d never see, I thought. Now I wonder if it wasn’t nostalgia.
The lines were always long at Paragon. Word-of-mouth was that Professor Paragon was never wrong on guessing an age, and almost perfect with the weights. (Perfect in that, too, I knew, but he threw a few just to keep the suckers hopeful.)
He’d lick liver-colored lips, his eyes shining and give me a sly wink, and guess wrong, and a plump pigeon of a woman would go away with a snowglobe or paperweight and think she had the treasure of the Pharaohs.
Sometimes Professor Paragon would sigh as he toyed with the silver bracelet — its symbols matched the booth’s — and his bright gaze would sweep the crowd that was different each night but always the same.
Until one July night, when his gaze seemed to linger and I followed it to a small, dark man taking in the patter and the flash. The torchlight catching his eyes gave me the impression he was gloating. Suddenly he slipped to the head of the line. Now that I remember it, nobody complained.
“Guess my age,” he said quietly, and fire met fire as Professor Paragon looked at him.
“Brother, I don’t need to,” Paragon said, smiling broadly with sharp white teeth.
The small man stepped closer and sniffed, like animals sometimes do when sizing up another. His metal-on-metal laughter tore at my ears. “They said you were a fool, to be caught like this. I had to come see for myself.”
“More the fool, you.” Paragon’s hand shot out, grasping the visitor’s arm Suddenly his incised silver bracelet was on the dark man’s wrist.
“Free,” Professor Paragon said in that soft voice. It sounded almost like a prayer of thanksgiving. The man he’d called brother tried to step down from the dais, and couldn’t, bound there by silver and symbols and something strong and sour — magic, I guess you’d call it.
Paragon looked at me with a red glint of death in his eyes. I can’t explain why, but willpower fled and I fell to my knees, craning my neck upward, accepting my fate.
“Not this night,” the professor said gently. “Your new partner awaits.” He flitted past me and bounded down off the dais.
Someone’s always screaming along the midway: Shiny-eyed kids giddy from winning sawdust-filled toys or half-dead goldfish; couples checking out the Siamese twins in the freak tent; buddies ragging each other at the ring-the-bell game. That’s not real screaming.
When Professor Paragon carved his way, tooth and nail, through the midway crowd that July night, those screams reached down my throat and twisted my guts. I swear I had goose bumps on the inside of my skin. Still do.
The images of that hot, red chaos don’t fade, either. Never will.
Hunger sated, revenge satisfied, boredom relieved, Professor Paragon faded into the night. We couldn’t tell the cops how or why, and they, equally at a loss, kicked it around for a few months, then concocted a story about drug-crazed lunatics on a rampage and let the story fade.
We travel another circuit now, and call Paragon’s new tenant Doctor Darke, but the booth is the same. We don’t trumpet it, but mystery and danger seem to feed their own rumors, and the crowds come.
He stands there, dressed in black, fidgeting with the silver bracelet, hating the crowds but knowing they are his only hope. I can see a spark behind his heavy-lidded eyes as he searches for the needle in the haystack, the perfect mark who will set him free. Who will let him feed his growing hunger.
And I watch, too, so that nobody like him tries their luck at the booth. I’m not bound by silver and spell, but I guess I’m as much a prisoner as Darke. While it’s not much consolation, knowing that I might prevent another midway nightmare helps me sleep nights.
Mostly. Until the nightmares start.
TW Williams is a Chicago-area writer and magazine editor, who has magazine and anthology credits in fantasy and science fiction genres.
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24 Responses to “PARAGON • by TW Williams”
Comments
« DELIGHTFUL SURPRISE • by Doug Paul Case | Home | FULL BOARD • by Frank Roger »
March 3rd, 2009 at 1:32 am
Very good. I thought you might have built on the “relationship” between Paragon and the narrator a little more. Was the narrator only bound to Darke by his desire to prevent a slaughter or was he also bound by magic? Hmm. It probably doesn’t need explained.
Over all it was all round old school enjoyable.
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:02 am
Spoooooky! Excellent story-telling and great characterisation.
A five from me.
March 3rd, 2009 at 4:18 am
Top notch, T.W.
March 3rd, 2009 at 4:40 am
Caught my attention right from the beginning. Very well done.
March 3rd, 2009 at 5:19 am
This, TW, is wonderful.
March 3rd, 2009 at 5:42 am
Great story, you get a five from me. I hate to ask, but this is . . . er, fiction, isn’t it? Very spooky.
March 3rd, 2009 at 5:48 am
Really, really good. Loved it!! Definitely five stars.
March 3rd, 2009 at 6:58 am
Excellent. I loved this passage the best:
“Someone’s always screaming along the midway: Shiny-eyed kids giddy from winning sawdust-filled toys or half-dead goldfish; couples checking out the Siamese twins in the freak tent; buddies ragging each other at the ring-the-bell game. That’s not real screaming.”
This is one of those you can go back to and pick up things you missed the first time around because when the action picks up, it drags you along so fast to see what is going to happen next.
March 3rd, 2009 at 7:53 am
Nice look at a seedy side of life.
March 3rd, 2009 at 7:55 am
Very well written tale of disappointed people who ex-pected wisdom from a “Paragon of wisdom and know-ledge,” but continue to come, maybe to see the paintings of Mayan pyramids, Transyvanian castles, and Celtic stones. For a trip to the museum they toss him a buck and then laugh that he has nothing to say about it except the age and weight of the customers. Meanwhile, Paragon hopes someone who could really do the job will take over before all customers lose interest. He finds only a par, but a patsy, and escapes. Oh, for licensing of professors!
March 3rd, 2009 at 8:06 am
Vivid, dark, and well-developed. An excellent story.
March 3rd, 2009 at 8:28 am
Very atmospheric and creepy. I enjoyed it.
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:15 am
This got a 5 from me – and I don’t hand them out easily. The quality of the writing is superb and I loved the ending. A great read…
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:18 am
Loved the setting and pacing! Very steampunk Twilight Zone-y. However, I’m still trying to figure out exactly who the characters really are, what actually happened, and why.
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:46 am
Fabulous Every Day Fiction debut, TW.
You all can be jealous of me, too, because I got to read this before you did!
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:49 am
Excellent story, Tom, and congrats on your EDF debut – here’s to many more.
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:49 am
Great piece of flash – you encapsulate so much history and horror in so few words. I really enjoyed it.
March 3rd, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Great voice and flow–it’s good to get a bit of horror once in a while. Gave it a 5.
–dj
March 3rd, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Brilliantly written!
March 3rd, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Thanks for all the supportive words, folks. My pleasure.
March 3rd, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Good stuff.
Distinct voice.
March 4th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Except for the very end quite well done. I liked it a lot, if only you’d cut out the “nightmares” part, it sounds clishe
March 7th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Dark, macabre, a bit surreal. Everything I usually like in a story and yet I find myself not enjoying this one as much as I feel I should. Perhaps it’s my mood, but I feel there’s something lacking. A little backstory maybe. I think this might be one that’s meant to be a bit longer than a flash piece.
Nevertheless, keep on with the writing. I hope to see more of your work.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Awesome story! Spooky, just the way a carnie story should be.