A Wonderful Time

Each year the carnival came. No one ever saw it arrive or leave. It was just there, bright and loud and temptatious. Each year everyone in town walked through the grinning mouth. Everyone spent their hard-earned coin on games, fried treats, and cotton candy. Everyone had a wonderful time, they all agreed.

Everyone, they agreed, but the one who never left, the one they gave to the Freak Show, to the horrible pit behind the curtain.

The one whose cries faded into the din of the howling happy midway.

So everyone could have a wonderful time.

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Friday Fiction picked up this week from Darleen at protein wisdom. Check out her story, which is certainly more harrowing than mine.