Memories of India

The walls were white, tinged yellow in some places by water stains and decorated with cinnibar coloured pillars, the cieling had blue silk scarves hanging from it, some attempt to makie it appear like the sky, but some of the scarves had fluttered to the ground and lay tangled around chair feet or, in one lone scarf's case, draped over the mantel. The floor was covered with a rich carpet that stretched almost the full length of the room, the wood beneath the golden tassels bordering it had the warm red hugh of mahoghany.
There was a bed of richly coloured pillows, covered with a fine layer of dust. The dust blew into the air like a mushroom cloud when she sat down in it. A few chairs were by the window, around a teakwood table where an ash filled incense burner lay, ash trickling over the edges and settled like mould in the inlaid mosaic table top. A shelf across the room from the window held an array of small trinkets from the vendors of markets in Bombay. A treasury collected from outdoor bazaar's under the blazing sun. A pair of expensive earrings on a hook, a copper jud, a stuffed elephant sewn with elaborately patterned scraps of cloth, a small drum with frayed edges of supple hide tied down with leather strings, a soft purple string purse and a silver spoon.
She took the spoon from the shelf and wiped it with her skirt, leaving a grey smudge on the hem. She held it up to the fading light of the setting sun, which had painted the room rosy gold through the white curtains. An oval of light appeared on the white wall beside the window.
A smaller shelf, set right below, held a line of shrinking ivory elephants, the largest the size of her palm.  She reached for them gingerly, stroked the painted ridges of their backs, gold paint that chipped and floated down from her fingertips. They were smooth as the beads around her neck and their eye sockets were hollows filled with shadow that looked like caves. The smallest elephant, she noticed, was the size of the pad of her pinkie finger.
The wardrobe was shaped like a blossom at the top, petals that burst up then gracefully sloped into cradles at the end, and sat on clawed feet - like those of a tiger - at the bottom. The door protested as she opened it, the hinges groaning. On the railing inside hung many lacy dresses, some of pale blue and some of flimsy white material with engraved silver buttons. They were long and thin and below them sat a pair of mismatched shoes, one with a broken strap. She was surprised to find, after all the years they must have been in this room, they were not moth eaten.
The clothes smelled faintly of spices, paprika and mango chutney. There was a jewel box with only a thin bracelet inside, the clasp broken.
A mouse scurried across the carpet and siappeared under the wardrobe. She followed it with her eyes, then her feet, and knelt in front of the wardrobe, pressing her cheek to the carpet, rough fibbers tickling her eyelashes. In the shadows there was a small hole, barely larger than a thimble, in the baseboard.
A gold cobra sat on the edge of a writing desk, hooded and poised to strike, facing a crystal ink holder. A jar of seedpods sat on the other end, leaving a circle of damp on the white parchment under it. They rattled like a snake when she shook it. A decanter held the dregs of something that smelled strong and tickled her nose.
The papers were a mix of printed business forms with scrawled signatures, and personal letters, some with blotted words of endearment, some with shared memories of scholarly misadventures. One held a photograph of a woman, young with inky black lashes and a long neck, bouncing a child on her leg. A child dressed all in lace, ribbons in her hair, hands balled, face scowling in the sun. A torn envelope sprayed and smeared with navy blue ink, gilded in the corners with gold.
Pictures of couples and families lined the wall. A very proper english man and woman, each with hats casting shadows across their faces, before a cow led by a turban wearing merchant. A gang of children, shirtless and brown in the sun, running down a road lines with stalls, beneath black and white flags that, were the pictured in colour, would have waves like a rainbow ocean blocking out the blue sky. The same woman from before, wearing a half smile, clutching her hat as a wind blows past, a plume of smoke rushing up to meet her facec as she bends over a concoction in a pot in the shadow of a derb. A map was tacked to the wall, showing the labyrinth of alleyways in a medhina, traced with red lines lik the complex of veins in an eye.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Ankti In Flight

Smoke rose from the camp sight like a giant grey bird, wings blocking out the setting sun, feathers swirling in wayward directions, floating on the wind amid the fiery reds and pinks of sunset. Soon night would descend, blackness like a blanket stitched with white like beads of birch bark, the moon, like the eye of an owl butterfly's wing. Woodsmoke and burned meat permeated the air, heat rushed in a waves from the bonfires just beginning to burn. Children rushed to tents, ready for dinner, dropping dolls and stick toys on the ground, hoops with strings from the guts of the hunt on their grill. They wiped their dirty hands on their bare chests, smearing paint paint across their fingers.

Ankti dropped her maize on the woven reed carpet of her hut and ducked beneath the flap and out into the evening. A breeze blew feathers into her hair, and made the beads they were strung with roll across her cheeks like pebbles.

She tugged on the bone handle of the stone knife around her throat, snapping the cord from it's knot behind her neck and raised it to the game hanging outside, the hide of a wildcat caught the day before, smoked and pinkish red. She'd skinned it and smoked it and now was ready to bring it inside. She severed the rope it swung on and brought the game inside the tent, laying it on a stiff reed table.

The flap of the tent quivered with the breeze, stoking the fire in their tent, smoke spiralling toward the hole in their tent, sparks dancing across logs and jumping outward like droplets from a disrupted puddle.

Ankti listened to the crackle of the fire, the hiss of water evaporating in wood, and the calls outside the tent. The chieftain was returning tonight. There would be celebrations. She was to sit at his side, a place of honour. He would bring her a gift, she would dance to show her gratitude. Makah had patiently shown her the steps, practicing with her in the shade of a willow behind shorn sheafs of grain and naked stock of maize. They had giggled with Ankti's ungraceful movements, her flailing limbs, and Makah's lack of balance. Much of their practice had given way to walks away from camp, through the underground caverns, and naps near sun ripened berry bushes and water that rushed liked coils of snakes under the mountains.

Mother had gone out, to collect the young ones and wash them in the last of the water lugged up from the river that day. It would make no difference, Ankti knew. Left alone the children became filthy and dust covered in a manner of minutes.

To pass the time she went over her paint marks, lines of blue and red on her shoulders, neck, collar bones and cheeks. Bolded, they stood out on her tanned skin and made her almond shaped eyes darker. She washed her palms clean and pulled her fingers through her matted hair, catching them on ornaments her mother had made for her in the last cycle of the moon, when she hadn't been busy tanning hides and threading furs with her bone needle.

Outside the sun dipped lower until it was a blur of liquid gold over the crag the spanned the entire of the western landscape. The woods became a black mass of twisting gnarled branches, patchwork foliage and blurred birds in flight against the vivid blue twilight. The camp sight was awash in the reds of the fire and drum beats began to fill the clearing, shaking the ground and writhing in Ankti's bones like tongues of flame. It called to her with the words of an old friend, but the intrigue of a new rhythm. The pounding became her heartbeat and she felt each turn of the earth, each finger gliding across a milk white skin stretched taught and reverberating with sound.

Surely it wouldn't hurt, she reasoned, to step out into the night for one moment. To leave the confines of the tent, now stiflingly hot and dark, and dance in the light of the fire, call out to the rising moon.

Before she had reasoned further, her feet had guided her out of the tent and toward the bonfire that grew like a beast in the night in the centre of the camp sight. Men and women were seated, in the dust and one logs or rush mats, waiting for new of the chieftain at the rivers edge. Elsewhere, miles away, on the backs of elks, men waiting amid the trees, akin to the movement of each leaf and twig, each night animal, as they waited for the water to ripple just right and alert them that the warriors, and their leader, had come back.

Those around the fire now banged drums and danced with open eyes, black with night, red with fire, and limbs as free as those of the willow trees. Ankti felt a bridge grow from her chest, as warm and insubstantial as light, reaching for the hearts of others whose bones were filled with the fire of the drums, whose feet were alive with the quaking of the dirt and the mountains. The wind blew her hair from her face and she rushed forward to meet it, leaping into the ring of dancers and letting the drums guide her.

The drums called to her, called left and right, up and down, and she jumped and spun to meet them. Her eyes were open but she saw nothing, nothing but sparks and black of night, nothing but clusters of stars that whirled above her, pinwheeling stories of Great Bear and other woodland creatures. She lifted her arms to them, willing her spirit to fly from her body, be one with the sky. She sang in praise of the moon, loudly with wild words, singing of the swiftness of the wind, the power of the fire, the tides of the ocean and the giving of the earth. She closed her eyes and spun, spinning closer and further form the heat of the fire, hands brushing furs and leather, beads clattering like the Great Rattle Snake -

"Ankti!"

The voice was shrill and cut through the pounding in her head and chest like an arrow through the red fox. The drumming ceased and her limbs became dead weight. The voice brought her back from that endless, spinning, golden moment and dropped her on the soil, before the blazing fire where the drummers had stopped, hands poised above their instruments, and the dancers had moved to the edges of the circle.

Ankti's mother stepped carefully through the drummers and circled Ankti's wrist with her fingers. She was shorter than Ankti, for her daughter had her father's height, but with her sharp, beautiful features and commanding voice, she was looked upon as the Great Owl, like a wise creature. She was well respected and few, including Ankti, spoke against her.

Ankti moved out of the circle with her mother, aware of the drumming beginning again, and the pitch black the sky had reached, the moon coming to its zenith as though it had followed its great silver arc in the passing of a second while Ankti had danced.

Ankti's mother, Kiwidinok to the people, Koko to Ankti and her siblings took in Ankti's appearance, her wild hair in wisps and clumped braids, her furs and skirt covered with dust, her legs streaked with brown.

"Chief will be back soon, you cannot disgrace him with such behaviour. You must await his presence at the greater bonfire, when he has travelled here from the river. You know that."

Ankti looked backed at the bonfire, feet aching to dance once more, and lifted her head to the moon, silently seeking help.

"I am sorry, Mother. I meant our leader no disrespect."

Koko released her daughter's wrist. "There is dinner in the tent?" Ankti nodded. "There will be more food later. We must dress you now, or-"

A horn drowned out her words. A horn of bone, Koko knew, hollowed out from a rare follow deer once found wandering the forest, alone, unaware of the arrow pointed to its heart. Unaware of the beauty of it's own hide, which now hung on the shoulders of the approaching chief.

His face was a map of time, wrinkling around his mouth telling the story of each smile, creases beside his eyes the story of each hardship and suspicion, lines on his forehead his every worry. His cheeks were smeared with red so dead and brown it was like the sands in the west. His broad shoulders had small raised scars on them, pale lines on his brown skin. His features were hard, square, but the tilt of his mouth in a smile sent reassurance and happiness throughout his people. He was tall, commanding, fiercely frightening with his feather staff and case of stone arrowheads, but capable of kindness. His eyes were dark, black pupils in black irises, orbs of inky night, now focused on Ankti.

"Daughter. Am I welcomed home?"

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Pleasures of Chalk

It is something akin to a chalkboard, strong and solid against the taught canvas of the tent walls. Unlike a chalkboard though, there is no faint layer of dust covering it, no pigment to marr the black surface. When a hand wipes clean a creation or signature or message, it is gone forever and the black surface on which it was written is as black as laquered wood.
Patrons making their way through the 'Chalkboard Tent', as it has come to be know, leave their signature, small pictures of flowers and figs and trains, messages to friends or to any reader who feels like perusing advice left by strangers. Children draw nonsense worlds, artists draw things they have seen in the circus. All with the multitude of coloured chalk kept in a large shallow dish on a pedestal in the centre of the tent. The results are black walls filled with stories and pictures.
One picture is of a cup of tea. The chalk on the board is warm to touch, the cup of tea smoother than the block board behind  it, and when one touches their fingers to the drawing, they come away wet and smelling of darjeeling. A patron, walking pensively around, notices there are no curls of steam rising from the surface of the tea, and procedes to draw them. Darjeeling scent clouds his head and there is a sudden heat when he brings his hand closer to the tea cup.
Elsewhere a strawberry has been drawn in red, and a sun in yellow above it. The smell of sun riped strawberries emenates from the board, only noticable to those close enough to see the tiny seeds in the strawberry, which feel prickly to touch.
Only inches away the smell changes to that of oranges, daisies, marmalade and dry leaves. A hurriedly sketched rabbit takes a waistcoat from his pocket, standing before a tunnel ringed with roots and tubers. His fur is silky, smooth as the fur of the cats performing two tents down.
Patrons pass it off as fanciful notions. "The night has run away with us, we've had too much excitement," they claim. Nevertheless, they indulge in more drawings and stories before leaving the tent.
One adventurous child touches the tip of his tongue to a purple plum. He stands, goes to the low dish and sifts through the decay of once full pieces of chalk, until finding one roughly the same shade of purple as the plum. He returns to the picture and make a small line in the centre of the plum, curved as though he has split the skin with his thumbnail. He touches his tongue to it once more, and stays until the plum is shriveled and collapsed around its pit.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

The World Over

Most of the tent is occupied by a huge globe that balances in the centre of raised platforms set up around it's perimeter. It produces its own light, glowing from within like a small sun. Tarnished silver staircases spiral are wound in a spiral rising up from the base, connecting platforms together. The landings are positioned perfectly so that one may treck one's fingers through the pelopenissian mountains, or her fingertips in the mangroves of New Zealand. Small children find it amusing to blow harsh winds across the Indian Ocean of into the Bay of Bengal, imagining the tidal waves crawling up shores like huge black mountains. The globe rotates slowly, and as it does, the light upon each region fades and flickers out like a dying candle so half of it looks like the dark side of the moon. Half the world is sleeping, and out of pretend courtesy many patrons only touch their fingers to the half of the globe in the light of day. Some wait for the countries to become vivid with light again, so they may see it more clearly. They miss the myrrh filled streets of Greece, the cold wet of Prague, the coffee in a little corner of Marrakesh grottoes. They watch the darkness fade, like children waiting for the sun to rise on Christmas morning, and unveil their missed places like presents.

Art by Call of Atlantis


Text by Lucie MacAulay

Mosaic Woman

Tall and imposing, a cacophony of colours.  She is a rainbow in the deep, dark spectrum of the cirque. Tiny shards of coloured glass and flat swirling beads encase her skin like a mosaic cocoon, even her eyelashes are made of thin diamond filaments. She has the cracked appearance of a broken doll thrown haphazardly back together with pieces of a stained glass window. No part of her appears to be whole.

Art by Irene Zeleskou


Text by Lucie MacAulay

Reminiscent of Lullabies

The sound of the cirque is constant, blending with the gasps of patrons, scuff of shoes and rustles of curtains. It comes from no exact location, only spreads into each crack and crevis of the circus, and settling like a blanket over the area enclosed in the pearlescent gates. Twinkling bells, forlorn flutes, windchimes, langorous strings playing daunting melodies. In some tents though, the music changes subtly from the music outside. The tunes are exotic, mismatched pieces overlapping one another, other tunes are slow and dauting, sorrowful or familiar, reminiscent of lullabies. Each song is heard only once, deliciously new and hypnotic, yet when a patron tries to recall it, hum it to themselves or share it with a friend, it escapes their grasp, slipping from memory.
In few tents, sound stops all together. Muted by fabric or silenced completely. Replaced by wind, breathing, the sound of flickering candles as fragile as whispers.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Cirque de la Lune

The circus, if ever seen from above, is a striking crescent moon. The cirque is a myriad of tents, wagons and platforms, curving around a line of human statues. There is no pattern to the tents or that paths that wind around. Those that have no tents or caravans perform where they can on black and silver platforms.
In the cradle of the crescent is a mirror, a curling gilded silver frame tilted toward the moon, reflecting back its full image so the glass plane appears filled with liquid silver.
The gate that surrounds Cirque de la Lune is nacreous, a stretch of swirling bars erected in black dirt and guilded with silver.
Being inside the circus, it has a labyrinthine quality. Each path has numerous turns, numerous ends and sights to be seen. Patrons that seemed lost simply follow the path in circle, emerging in the cradle of the crescent once more, and make their way to vendors selling tea, hot chocolate, cider and sugary pastries.
It is too delightful to be real. Yet the smell of autumn leaves, wind chimes, and dark musk is wistful and strong.
It is beyond a dream.

Art and text by Lucie MacAulay

The Arena

Lanterns and candles burned with deep orange light in the black latice that covered the shadowy cieling. More black swirls lined the walls and disappeared into the dark alcoves in each wall. Inky black shadows blossomed where the competitors stood.
More lanterns hung from the cieling on black leather cords. They were frequently reduced to ash or shards of glass in the course of the challenge; sometimes they caught on fire.

Text bu Lucie MacAulay

The Nectar of Battle

Blood stained his breastplate, shining in the dim light, like a scarlet mirror. Blades flashed, buried themselves in pieces of flesh, cut delicate veins in two. Eyes turned listless and watched the battle emptily. The soldiers in silver moved as one, spreading like a puddle of grey water across the battlefield. Their crimson flags rippled like waves in the breeze. When their swords shattered they turned to black powder and sparkled in the dust. The golden army moved in lines, waves upon wave like a tide of liquid sunlight. They held their banners high and fired flaming arrows into the onslaught of men. Metal against metal rang out like church bells. Hunting horns sounded, men cried out. Soldiers fell; blood ran in river lines across the earth, staining the soil. The scent of copper and earth made men’s’ eyes tear. It waged through the day, littering the ground in black and red, and into the night until the armies were green and black in the moonlight, patterns on their armour encrusted with blood.

When the sun rose their flags hung limply. Men blanketed the field, a quilt of the dead. Light rain fell, and fog slithered around legs like snakes.

Once, there had been dragons. Once there had been magic, magic that came from sage men’s fingers. Merlin’s magic. Now only black magic played a part in battle, chaotic and uncontrolled, choking opponents in black dust, shattering swords into black glass. Dragons were long dead, leaders no longer chosen for bravery, blood stronger than clarity, stronger than judgment and compassion.

Battles were no longed fought, battles were endured. Death was fate, life a blessing. Peace a myth. Men were as poisoned as the earth, trained thieves and killers. Old gods forgotten, victory worshipped.

Bardic tales lost, people that had danced in the streets now lay there, still as stone, white as snow.

Men in silver fought for freedom, men in silver fought for power. Men in gold fought for their lives, fought for their kingdoms.

The moon waned, the sun rose. Green to gold, black to silver, violet to scarlet. Dragons rose in the light of day, in the fire that blazed in their eyes. Armour moved like scales, daggers drove like fangs. Men writhed as one, engulfed in flames, until their bodies melted together.

One gold dragon rose, emerald eyes flashing, facing it’s silver twin. They circled each other, lashing out fiercely, spitting and lunging. In the ashes and blood their performance became a waltz, a consummate dance, flourishing and twisting.

The dragons curled in on themselves, like a fern frond, then around one another. They wind so tightly they are almost one. They curl around and around, winding smaller and smaller until they are impossibly small, the size of garden snakes.

In the fire of the sunrise they slither away, abandoning the field of fallen men.

Behind them are two eggs, large and shining, surfaces as scaled as those that laid them.

When the heat of the sun cracks the eggs, the creatures that spill forth are not dragons. They do not burst forth with filmy wings and jewel like eyes. They are men. Ready to begin battle again, sacrifices forgotten, faded in time. Blood in the nectar of the grass. 

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Mermaid Thoughts

If I were a mermaid I would travel from sea to sea, stopping in each continent, exploring it like I would explore another world. In the Mediterranean I would enjoy the sun, the smell of exotic fruits and spices. In Australia I would glide over the reef, surprising small colourful fish. I would spend hours underwater enjoying the colours, the pearly iridescent whites, the swirling greens, the soft pink of a seashell and the countless shades of blue as pale or deep as the sky. I would rise out of the water, among the waves that crash like galloping white horses. I would lie still in slow currents, drifting, dragging my fingers in the sand, the currents sliding over my skin like ribbons. I would find a place among the sea turtles and rest on their broad warm shells. I would play with the dolphins, laughing and expelling bubbles from my mouth. I would reach the depths of the ocean and explore the vast grand kingdom of Atlantis, the ruins of majestic spires and towers and overgrown gardens of sea lavender. I would swim to the arctic oceans, circling the icebergs, watching the sun glint off the ice and pass through in hazy canyons that pierce the frozen water. I would turn and find myself face to face with the ice bears, their massive claws and big black eyes. I would climb the underwater volcanoes, run my hands on the dark rock, feeling the red heat flowing and rushing within it. I wonder if, being underwater so long, I would admire the sun? Would I be fascinated by the colours of a fire, watching the flames and sparks that light up dark nights, from afar? Would I begin to become captivated by embers and coals, the smoky ruby prisms? What of the moon, would the silver patterns of light on the water’s surface entrance me? The green grey tint on night clouds and white orb keeping me above the waves long after I’ve gotten tired. If I lived in a world of blue and green and wet, would I want the feel of warm dry sand, trees that grow on mountainsides instead of mangroves? Like a princess who gazes out the window of her tower, daydreaming of running away and tasting new things. Would I close my eyes and imagine the smell of ripe apples by a hot meadow, the blinding pink light of cherry blossoms dappled with sunshine, the nectar yellow of leaves falling as trees bend in an autumn wind? If not, if I did not yearn for a world I was a part of, what would I fill my days with? I could sing tragic, mournful, beautiful songs and lead sailors to their death. I could pick my way through riches and treasure in sunken ships, amid watery graves, skeletons sleeping in caverns too deep for their bones to be bleached by the sun. I could have a sweet face, masking fatal intentions that are the ending of so many. Perhaps I would desire to lure someone or something, without bringing them harm, without being the cause of pain. I would want something else, something different. As everyone does. 

Art by Kagaya

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Forgotten Cities

There are forgotten cities, hundreds of them, buried beneath the earth, raining with loose dirt and woven with roots and vines. Or on mountaintops, shrouded by mist, air crisp and cold. Or in the deepest, darkest regions of ancient forests, thick with old oaks and yews, shadowy save for a few stray shafts of sunlight piercing the canopy. Some are young, still legends in the oldest and cloudiest minds of men, some were born and died eons ago. All forgotten in different ways. Some, battlefields, left out of sadness, wastelands that over time were overgrown with foliage. Some cities were abandoned for others, pillars and walls left standing, blown to dust by the wind. Some drained dry of their riches, earth scorched black by fire, iron dug out beneath mountains, mines empty of veins or ore. These forgotten cities are alive in their own way, networks of secret streets and structures ripe with myth. It is in the carvings in stone, of stags with three horns, rampant lions and horses with single twisting horns. It is in the gilded scrolls of parchment so old they are reduced to grey dust with the lightest touch. It is in the faded paint on a map of river lines as intricate as veins. It is in the armouries, treasuries and libraries where sit blades and vases, crowns and daggers, bibles and compasses. Myth and legend are the only legacy these cities will pass on. Stories will be told, written, words changed until what truth they one told is now a different truth altogether. In time, the old stories will no longer exist. In time, the mountains will wear away to pebbles. The rivers will dry. The trees will wizen and crumble. ARtifacts will be buried, as much a part of the earth as rock and soil. Scrolls and books, histories, will be tangled among tree roots. The blood of those cities' people will be as diluted as a glass of wine in the ocean. There will be nothing to suggest those cities ever existed, that they ever stood tall and grand, looking down on lesser kingdoms. That they ever celebrated their conquests or mourned their loved ones. That they ever killed or cried or fought. That they ever sang or danced or drank. That the streets were ever full of merchants, blacksmiths, bards. There will be nothing. There will be nothing at all.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Husk Flowers

It is unbearably lonely.

Beside the bed is a vase, the inside filled with mold, the outside crystal with a fine layer of dust. The flowers inside the vase were once beautiful, she can tell by the veins spreading outward from the centre like roots, and the diamond shape of the petals. They are ivory now, whatever colour they had been when first picked gone forever. They are old and dry, stems blackened with age. They are a husk of what they used to be.

Without removing her eyes from them, she sits on the edge of the bed, sending a balloon of dust into the air like a small storm.

She moves her fingers toward the flowers, but inches away, disrupted by the sudden shift in the air, one bursts into ashes. It lingers in the air a moment, then trickles through the porous petals of its twin blooms, fine as sand. 

Art by J-W

Text by Lucie MacAulay

A Year of Stargazing

Orbs like planets in the darkness that some patrons insisted must be spherical lanterns, globes of dusky light, as real planets would be much too hard to see in the illumination of the circus.

Above tiny lights had come alive, the sounds of the circus dimmed, replaced by the sound of wind and chimes like the tinkling of icicles. The lights clumped together in lines and spirals, forming pictures that are the stuff of legend. Patrons could not discern whether it was the night sky or a cleverly sewn tapestry of constellations.

Stargazers intimately familiar with Carina, Aquarius, Cassiopeia and the Hydra do not recognize some of these new shapes and try to trap them in their memory, to consult their books and journals. Children depict animals and make-believe creatures in them; create stories of their own. Older folk enjoy the silence and the darkness, speak in low tones of how much more visible the stars were when they were young. Lovers lie side to side, holding each other, enjoying the privacy.

The lights blaze and twinkle, shift as though the night has sped and a spectrum of stars visible in only the winter or summer as suddenly visible only minutes apart.

Patrons point to shooting stars, make wishes they forget later in the same night. They leave stark white streaks across the sky and when the stars begin to fade and the clouds appear, they are bright lines in green and silver. When there is no more light save for those that line the entrance to the tent the patrons slowly stand and make their way out, blinking the bright spots from their vision.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Trick of the Light

Illumination

A cacophony of lights twinkles in the blackness of the tent. Strings of teardrop shaped glass encasing tiny flickering flames draped around the perimeter and across the ceiling like a spider web, appearing like stars against the darkness. Stark white candles in lanterns with stars and crescent moons cut out. Globes of silver and pale blue light that seem to float like planets and give off so much light they are surrounded by a misty aura. Iron sconces cradling bright white flames. The brilliance of the lights is blinding, each as bright as the sun and as silver as the moon. 

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Bone White Forest

The forest is full of birch trees, bone white on a snow-white ground. There is black sky all around, dotted with lights as flickering as fireflies. A fire burns in the centre, drawing you to it with its warmth and the smell of woodsmoke. The fire stands out like blood against snow, burning black and red as smoldering embers, where the flames rise above they become the colour of rich wine, and then fade to rosy gold. The very tips are bronze, the vivid light draped across the skeletal trunks and branches. The mesmeric dance of flames is striking against the monochromal landscape. In the blackness of the forest the lightly falling snow intertwines with embers. 

Art and text by Lucie MacAulay

The Fire Tent

Fire breathers whose mouths erupt with birds, dragons, serpents who spit and scatter sparks. The flames change colour too, flickering between a prism of twilight blues, pitch blacks and smoky snow whites. A woman in a billowing grey gown holds fire in her bare hands, a zoo of flaming creatures prowling in her fingertips. A gryphon with the starwhite head of an eagle takes off, his wings morphing into that of a pegasus that prances until it's wings are gone, replaced with a horn of silver erupting from it's forehead.
Another man holds the fire on a stick, twirling it until it is a wheel of fire above his head, beneath his feet, spinning around the many dancers holding flaming hoops. They leaps between the hoops, toss them in the air and grab them at the end of the arc of flames left brightening the air.
They smile at you as you watch, distracting you momentarily before you realize the sparks coming from each hoop, each pole and from the tales and tongues of each animal, hang in the air around you, like miniature flaming stars, before sizzling into nothing.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

The Trapeze Act

Poised in mid-air, suspended by black silks wrapped around one leg and one arm, one end disappearing into the darkness at the top of the tent, the other gathered into a knot between them. From the delicate arc of a foot to the bend of an elbow, the acrobats hover unflinchingly. Slowly the silver balls balanced on the underside of their feet begin to glow, gauzy white light illuminating the acrobats, brightening the dimly lit height and the metal cages and spheres around them. Each wears swaths of draped black cloth, so thin they would be considered scandalous in any other company. Shadows are cast across their faces. One has intricate tattoos disappearing under her black attire, the string of symbols winding around her like ribbons. The balls of light become brighter until they are too luminous to see the spheres containing the light. Then the acrobats begin.

They begin slowly, two at a time, swinging on silks, ropes and bars and landing gracefully on platforms and sphere-tops. Then they quicken. Soon each one is flying through the air, spinning and falling and catching one another. There are so many in the air, catching the light, unbothered by the absence of a new beneath them, moving so quickly it is almost impossible to see the moment they hold onto something still to keep from falling. For a few minutes they are a mass of black and white birds performing an intricate dance, always being where the others aren’t. They juggle the balls of light as they move, tossing them up and grabbing them before they drop, in their hands and feet. The light swells; growing brighter, and the acrobats pull back.

They hover at the edges of the tent for a brief tick of a clock.

Then, as one, they swing toward the middle. It appears to the patrons that they will crash into each other and while several of them exclaim and gasp, they cannot look away. But the acrobats are spinning, motionless bodies arched under the knot of their silks. One foot tangled in the silks, the opposite knee bent, the balls of light held up in one hand and nestled in their feet. They are a spider web dewed with silver light.

Art by Patti-Jo

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Feel Free to Jump

The entire space glows. Before you there is only a stretch of rock, black as soot with darker veins running through it like river lines on a map. Where the rock ends there is silver light that hangs in the air, suspended like mist. Hanging above the space beyond the precipice are dozens of pieces of mirror. Some fragments are jagged and long, some are rounded and have pieces of black metal frame around the edges. They reflect the light around the walls of the tent, creating so many canyons of silver luminescence it is impossible to pinpoint exactly where it comes from. You walk to the edge of the precipice, your footsteps echoing on stone as though you are in a deep canyon. You peer over the edge, filled with mingling fear and curiosity. Below is only a bed of feathers, no ground in sight. They are as pristine as snow, with silver silhouettes that brighten in the undulating mirror light.

Looking over the precipice you begin to remember every time you have felt disappointed, hurt or vengeful. You remember each wrong you have done, each guilty deed that makes you cringe. It is reflected back at you in the mirrors. You are suddenly very heavy, as though a weight is on each of your shoulders, pressing on you and sinking your feet into the ground.

You leap and almost seem to freeze, floating midair among bits of revolving glass. Then you fall. It is a slow descent, the mirrors become smaller and you begin to see the patterns of light on the feathers below more clearly.

You land in the bed of white, throwing feathers around you that drift slowly down like pieces of paper, swaying to and fro. The weight you felt falls away gradually, as though you left it on the precipice, until you are as light as the feathers. 

Art by Stephanie

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Butterflies

Against the white silk they are a beating rainbow heart, colour that pulses like a heartbeat. The colour one thought had only just been orange as the embers of a dying fire is now brown and dusky yellow, and the butterflies swarm to form a great owl. It's head turns and it blinks round yellow orbs before the butterflies break apart, flapping their wings before settling again. This time they are all iridescent blue, appearing like sparkling waves, and it is impossible to tell where one butterfly ends and another begins. Swallowtails emerge, flying over the waves like silky blackbirds whose wings have caught the rising sun.

Art by Abby Diamond

Text by Lucie MacAulay

The Man in the Moon

His skin is painted silver, eyelashes and eyebrows silver as well. He sparkles like snow in starlight as the moon he sits upon rotates, spinning on the end of an invisible stirng. It catches the light of the moon above and reflects it like a mirror at the walls of tents and the eyes of patrons, so their irises are round with moondust and their pupils black pebbles. His body reflected the craters of the moon in the corded muscles in his arms, the indents of his hipbones, the hollows of his cheeks. Strings of tiny glass drops draped from shoulder to toe, some larger than others and shaped like teardrops, some small and as light as bubbles. His eyes are two grey orbs, smouldering like woodsmoke. The sign on the silver dais below is black with looping silver script giving a name from a childrens' story.

Art by Florence & the Machine


Text by Lucie MacAulay

Bottled Poetry

"Wine is bottled poetry"

Wilted lilacs smell like sour wine, I noticed one day. 

Wine leads men to tell stories, in the height of their misery or merriment. 

In a bottle of wine is an Arthurian legend; a wizard trapped in a tree. 

Wine flowed in rivers when the earth was young. Stained the crystals in a cave to purple, Amythest. 

In a glass, swirled and lifted to dry lips.

The red sea, on which floats a pirate ship, sale flapping. The waves that conceal the flip of a mermaid's tail.

It is the black script on old parchment, words that run wild like lupine letters, the ink of sonnets. 

Wine is the scandal that becomes merely a daring spectacle. 

It is the cruelest month, lilacs in the dead land. That wilt and smell like sour wine. 

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Symphony in Silver

Despite the name in looping silver letters on the gate, the cirque is often referred to by many other names. Cirque d’Illusion. Cirque des Etoiles. Cirque d’Illumination. Even Cirque des Lucioles after the tent filled with fireflies. Yet many patrons still smile and whisper to themselves the name they see atop the gate as they enter, a symphony of “Cirque de la Lune” that is swept away by the nighttime wind. 

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Not Red

She'd thought she looked like Little Red Riding Hood, though older by a few years of course. And she wore a red hoodie, not a cloak. There hadn't been any hikers on the path, nobody to interrupt the hum of the cicadas or the rustle of the leaves. There had been silence, the silence of the forest holding it's breath, and she'd suspected something was about to happen. 
When he thundered down the path, the first in a line of riders with black and brown horses, she had been surprised. Not by his strange old-fashioned clothing, or his knowing smile, but by his beauty. 
He had not greeted her, and the conversation that occured as he came closer is a blur. She recalls bits and pieces, her confusion and the sleepy yet deadly light in his eyes. She had to correct him too, tell him her name wasn't Red. He'd thrown back his head and laughed, as though she'd told a funny joke. 
He was predatory, his movements fluid as he urged his horse toward her. He'd said they'd met before. He'd looked at her with his startlingly bright eyes and strange angular features. 
And when he told her he would take her away her brain had battled, flinging thoughts such as This isn't possible, and Take me away, please, that rattled in her cranium. 
And when he pulled her onto his horse and began to ride her through the forest she'd thought, But it's just a story, it's just a story. 


Art and text by Lucie MacAulay

Signs

There are no signs in the circus. No text on pieces of paper or hanging planks of painted wood. No silver words on black or black words on white. There is no indication of what lies beyond the curtain of a tent or the door of a caravan. They are only recognizable by the colour of the canvas and small illustrated pictures the size of a postcard that hang from doorways and openings. Nevertheless, patrons discover names for them, christening the tents in order to refer to them in passing or as suggestions to friendly patrons they pass. Many are delighted later to find signs made and hanging above tents they have visited, engraved with the name they have bestowed.  

Art and tet by Lucie MacAulay

Field of Stars

When I was younger, I believed dandelions were stars. At night the grass was black: black as the sky, black as the trees. The dandelions were always white, whether the moon was out or not. They didn't glow, but they dotted the blackness with their white clocks the way stars do the sky, and stood in clumps like constellations. I looked up and down, back and forth between earth and sky. They were the same in my eyes. And when I ran through a field of dandelions, scattering wishes and seeds, I was running in the stars.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Puzzle Pieces

Puzzle pieces printed with unimaginable creatures; a menagerie in shapes, and scenery; trees and clouds and groves in conjunction with mountains and rivers. When the pieces at the bottom are replaced (for they are always falling into the bottom of the screen) they fade into inky blackness.

Art by Yitux


Text by Lucie MacAulay

Birds of Sand

The sands coalesced into shapes; crumbling autumn leaves, birds with broken wings flapping uselessly in the wind grainy white flames that rose and fell with the breeze. She lifted her hands to feel them but the sand tumbled away from her fingertips. As the breeze died down they fell into the space between her fingers and settled on the ground around her feet. When she stepped forward she did not look back to see the sand smooth over her footprints into a pale grey plane.

Art and text by Lucie MacAulay

Ballroom

Circular and endless, rimmed and hung overhead with inky black curtains, smooth as a panther pelt but with the starry constellations of a leopard. Masked dancers in elegant gowns of lace and damask, pinstriped or soot-coloured suits whis across the checked floor on squares of white and black moonstone. Circumzenithal arcs encompass the circus folk in a low wall of ivory, each crest topped with silver balls reminiscent of the jugglers outside. Above hang silver stars, mirror surfaces flashing in the gossamer glow.

Art from 1986 Labyrinth


Text by Lucie MacAulay

Aquarium

The walls of the tent disappear into the distance. Crystalline bubblies float like teardrops. Cast along deep blue silk screens are silhouettes of swaying ferns and iridescent shadowy fish, caught in the last filtering ripples of sunlight. Patterns of light play over patrons' faces, their skin caressed by invisible currents, limbs weightless, sound muffled by rushing water.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Human Phoenix

Ribbon of red and orange swirl around him, swathes of slippery fabric that lick his legs and chest like real flames. On his head is a plume, like a peacock's crown but in gold and red and muted greys, the colours of a dying fire. He stands perfectly still, muscles and eyes unmoving, even when the ribbons begin climbing higher and higher, circling faster. Until they truly are fire. Where the ribbons stop and the flames begin is undeterminable but it is only moments before he is entirely engulfed in fire. His dark face is illuminated, then gone. He is invisible in the wall of fire. It begins to dwindle, calming until there are only flickering blue flames around a black pedestal where now stands a pile of grey ash. Many people wait a minute or two to see if he will emerge from some hidden compartment. When he does not they wander away, looking for something to take their minds off the disturbing event. Only those who stay until the wind swirls the ash into the air see his shoulders rise, pulling his head and body up with them until the ashes fall off him. He stands, once more erect, on the pedestal. Ribbons climb up his legs in a red dance but he does not move, though he shines brighter than before.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

The Dream Catcher

At first it appeas to be a spider's web, the overlapping gossamer threads resemble fine filaments of ivory silk against the inky blackness. But clinging to the threads are not flies, instead there are pieces of quartz, clear and roughly cut., and other trinkets; raven feathers dove deathers, nacreous beads and black bells.

Art by Reina Jewelry


Text by Lucie MacAulay

Obsidian Widow

Resting in the trumpet of night blooming jasmine it watches, restlessly moving its chelicerae, venom beading on them like dew. When it navigates from one trumpet to another or hides in a deep red rose, the vivid ruby red of its underbelly flashes, bathing the woven threads and velvety petals around it in bloody light.

Art by Aurelien Police


Text by Lucie MacAulay

The Contortionist

The black marks on her skin are like fragments of a larger picture, too small and disjointed to make sense. But as the contortionist moves, benids into impossible shapes, the tattooos change, shift, until they collide with one another, skin on skin and form exotic pictures, or strings of words in beautiful script. 

Art by Fluff

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Wind Up Toys

Amber light seeped from the hallway, illuminating the grass and trees. Mira hurried up the path, tredding on flowers and narrowly avoiding the empty iridescent husks left by beetles. She came to a stop, flushed and out of breath, at a golden chamber on the crest of a hill. It was filled with strange ornaments; tiny animals perched on pillars. Some were gold, some silver, and some ivory or crystal, all seated on blue silk squares. From one sweeping glance she found her favourite, it was a tiny ivory swan with a gold beak, inlaid with ruby red eyes. On the underside of the swan, she discovered when she picked it up, was a crank fittted into a niche in the pillar. She slipped her fingers into the grooves of the crank and hesitantly spun it until it halted with a satisfying clunk. Mira placed the swan gently back on it's pillar. As the crank began to turn, after the initial grind of gears and cogs, the room filled with an intoxicating sound. A familiar melody that drifted in the air and made the world around her sway, until she realized it wasn't the landscape that was swaying, but her. Slowly, then faster until all was blurred. She kept her gaze on the swan's red eyes, but they were darker... like wine, no, like blood. Nausea rushed through her stomach and she turned to find fresh grass in her face and the world on it's side.

Art by ATL Jewelers


Text by Lucie MacAulay

Tea Party Madness

It was madness. Cold tea dribbled off the white-clothed table edges. Various limbs of cups, saucers, teapots, sugar bowls and milk jugs littered the table. Dolls spewed white fluff from their positions on the table, some had butter knifes sticking out of them.

Kerli stood next to the table. Icing and clods of cake clung to her hair and was smeared down her front and across her face. Her dress was ruined, her shiny shoes wet and full of pastry and glazed fruits. She wiped some cake from her eyes, smudging her sparkly makeup in a streak toward her ear.

“Well,” she said after a moment. “That was livelier than I thought it would be.”

Kerli turned around and left the room, returned, picked up the dolls and put them in a neat pile on the table, then left again.

In the long hallway she greeted her friend, a woman older than her by a few years. Her friend glanced up at Kerli’s hair and dress.

“Nice costume. How was it?” she asked.

Kerli shrugged and pulled off her frilly dress and threw it aside. Then she pulled on her black robe and sat down, combing the cake from her long tendrils and filling her engraved rings with sugar.

“It was fun. For the most part. They began fighting.”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “And you didn’t stop them?”

Kerli shrugged again. “I stood off to the side to watch them. They were so bloody. I think they enjoyed the cake though.”

The woman nodded. “Of course they did. The cook did a wonderful job. Maybe next time you should stop them. You don’t want to run out of toys. What would you do then?”

Kerli wondered. “Play on my own I suppose.” She sighed and stood up. “I’m going to go wash up. Maybe tomorrow I’ll build an army. I haven’t done that in a while.”

Her friend set down her book. “Perhaps you should find another hobby.”

Kerli shrugged. She really was quite tired from that last tea party. She wanted a bath and a nice sleep in her bed. Maybe some new dolls.

Kerli went to her room and took a bath. When she was nestled in her large bed, lights turned off and curtains closed, she thought about her friend’s comment. She lifted her wrist and tugged on the string that had just begun to form on her skin. “I won’t sleep for long,” she promised.


Art from 2010 Kerli Music Video "Tea Party"


Text by Lucie MacAulay

Bones in the Shell

Her temple aches and when she reaches up to lean it in her palm, her fingertips brush the shell of her ear. In the arc she finds three spikes, piercing her flesh in a small row. The spikes are smooth, like bone. She cannot remember if they were there when she went to sleep but tiny red brown flakes are on the tips of her fingers when she pulls them back. She tries to twist one and quickly ceases when it turns with a lashing tongue of pain across her skin.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Perfectly Contrasting Stripes

He has perfectly contrasting stripes, snow white and midnight black, but the eyes with which he watches her are icy blue. She does not turn away. She approaches him and once standing at his side, turns to gaze across the ocean. She absently lifts a hand to stroke his head, resting her palm between his ears. He does not move. The sky shifts from pale grey to dusky twilight and the few stars that dust the sky are bright as suns.

“Where do we go now?” she asks. She may be asking him, or she may be asking the empty air. She gets no response from either. It begins to rain. Drops falling onto the beach in windblown patterns. But the rain is light and is hardly there before it is gone. Though the sky has darkened. The clouds are stark against the inky blackness and two seas stretch before her, one of ebony and one of sapphire, each with a silver moon, though one moon wavers slightly as though it is reflected in rippling glass.

She turns and walks up the beach, away from the sea. She does not have to look behind her to know he has risen and is following her. She stops where the sand has almost dried and the water cannot reach it. She lies down, rain picking up grains of sand, dress catching on a loose strip of log wood. Her calves are bare on the gritty dune, the crest of it only a few feet above sea level. She lets her hands fall to either side, her chest and head higher than her fingertips. He lies down besides her, resting a massive snowy head on his paws. She vaguely remembers dreams, as she lifts a hand to stroke his ears. She releases his ears and the memory and turns her head away from the sea, closing her eyes. It is red behind her eyelids; dark and red like smoke and fire. She dreams something warm, spicy and rich and the colours of a fire. Sparks flicker, embers radiate light and metal undulates in the heat rolling off each flame. When she wakes and cracks her eyelids open like the lid of a rusty wooden chest, she cannot remember her dream.

He is there, wide blue eyes watching her. The beach is grey and beige, the sky icy and the sea infinite. The only difference is the fog billowing across its surface. The sand is colder than it seemed last night. It is lighter; the clouds are thinner and weaker against the sun. She shields them with a hand, the skin on her knuckles and palm cracked and dry and white, like spider webs. “Where do we go now?” She asks again. She receives no answer.

When she does stand, her back aching as she stretches, her hair matted behind her neck, she looks at the beach. It stretches on in each direction, disappearing into mist. Behind her is the sea, ahead of her are dunes, sand rising and falling, and beyond the palest outlines of dunes she can see nothing.

“That way?” She suggests, watching a cloud of mist move over a distant grey dune. He does not answer but when she begins walking, he follows.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Marble Castle

The castle that rises out of the mist is large. Large enough that is stretches on in each direction to the horizon, as though it is as big as the beach. It is made of off white marble, or some other smooth stone. There are gray tiles on the roofs though they are also adorned with many white spires coming out of arches and turrets that are elaborately carved, and even adorning the tops of windows. There are pale grey streaks on some of the bigger walls, where water has streamed and stained the walls. There are carvings of seashells, ferns, strange one-horned beasts, and some that are simple complex patterns of swirls and flourishes.

The windows are black, the inky glass only reflecting the mist and dunes outside. She can see herself in a large window, her own pale tangled form rippling in the pane.

Beyond the castle are vast grey shadows with shifting outlines. Despite the grey sky, they seem out of place.

There is no gate around the castle. No moat or garden or pathway. The door is clear of any obstruction and when she places a hand on the curling silver handle, it swings open without protest. 

Art by Daniel Merriam

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Panthers

The giant cats do not respond to her reflective eye makeup and light-catching clothing. Cynthia herself cannot feel her hair burned in straight curtains or her skin sprayed with fine bronze mist. But they raise their noses at her, sniff and become bored. She lifts her arm to her nose, her skin smells as it always has.

The panthers prowl on the white floor, black fur shedding and pelt gleaming in the lights. Cynthia watches their pupils grow to black pools, and then shrink until their eyes are jaundiced orbs. She poses a thousand ways. Draped over the creatures, cowering from them, morphing her expression but keeping her eyes on their listless ones. She tries to prowl with them, mimicking the smooth ripple from their shoulders to their paws and the sway of their head. The photographer follows her but she follows the panthers.

The set ends. There will be no more animals now, someone says as the panthers are rounded up. They return to their cages and she returns to hers.  

Art from Q Magazine 2009

Text by Lucie MacAulay