Silver
And now he lied on his side among them, the light seeping from his hollow bones, draining his celestial energy.
“Anything?”
They opened there eyes at once, together.
“It’s getting harder for us,” said the little man with top hat. “Pure insanity.”
“How pure?”
The little man shrugged.
Purple dreads spoke up: “We could have killed one tonight.”
“But we didn’t,” interrupted the boy. His tone was nervous. He knew what the consequences for killing one of them was; exile… even if it was in self-defense.
Silver whispered. “Listen…”
Fifty or more bodies crammed into a blue tent on the edge of chaos, yet they leaned into listen; to hear. They might of looked spectral in the aqueous angel-light, but they all knew their place among the lost. Many of them carried sadness and pain in their eyes from seeing and knowing too much, but to hear him speak, one who knew pain beyond any one of them, was worth it. It’s not that they were elite; far from it… if they were elite then they certainly wouldn’t be here. If anything, they were alone, isolated, alienated; islands in a vast, perpetual darkness. And it wasn’t a matter of being misunderstood; it was a matter of being non-existent.
“The show must go on,” he said.
Silver hated his father for what he did, a hate that came from deep within … his father’s hate, one constantly at war with his mother’s love. But he knew how important it was to find him; to ask him the one question… Why? Still, all he had was his mother’s vague memory to guide him; and these lost, these few, to aid him. It was like finding a dark seed in a darker garden,
“We’ll find him,” said the little man. And they all agreed.
On the outside, where the carnival lights were dimmest, there was a jungle of men preparing to discover nothing at all.
“But we need to be careful,” said Silver, looking at the boy; looking through him and into his dreams.
They boy nodded and thought: Why must there be so much sadness?
“Because it’s the human way,” said the angel. “Which is the most important reason why the show must go on.”
“How many of them are capable of love?” Asked the boy, his eyes brimming with wetness.
They all knew the answer, but they liked to hear him say it anyway. It gave them hope. After all, that was the carnival’s purpose.
“All of them,” he said. “But for now I need rest.”
Gradually, he was alone; and always.
