The Circus is coming, the circus is coming!

The calliope whistles merrily as the circus comes to town. You know what’s coming as the parade turns the corner and you get a full view of the menagerie of beasts and freaks, clowns and characters. It’s daylight, but somehow both dark and light at the same time. Chiaroscuro. The lightness comes from painted faces and the hollow whistle of steam. 

You’re 10 years old, standing on a dusty street in what will soon become an abandoned town. “The circus is coming!”  You think to yourself,  “I’m gonna stand here with this cotton candy in my hand forever and ever refusing to witness any future but this. 

My mom had a weird saying about “Wish in one hand, and want in another” – I get the point. You have to play the cards you are dealt. Here’s my hand. The circus is here and the clowns all look like Emmett Kelly.

The world sprang a leak a bunch of years ago, and now there are sinister clowns in the closet. Unfortunately, the closet is in the people’s house. 

This is the new America, it’s Great Again, where the result of our choices have had a catastrophic global effect. The people have retreated and big business has bought the land.  America is a freak show and P.T. Barnum is playing the calliope.

The birth rate dropped so significantly that America passed legislation requiring every married couple to have 2 children. An incentive program was developed to repopulate the country. 3 kids net 100K 4 kids net 200 K. Sweet Jesus every Sunday on the TV. Abortion has been illegal for 15 years. Youthenasia is the reward for the infirm the old or the minority.

Television replaces print. Television replaces the internet. The Internet becomes television. 

Ever have that moment of confusion when you wake up violently from a dream. You sit up in bed, the sheets are wet and there is a momentary absence of reality. You shake it off, you go to work. You boot your computer. 

There’s nothing there but 3 channels of TV.