THE DEMON FAIRES: A WARNING, A MEMORY, A CYCLE UNENDING
you don't join the demon faires. they unjoin you.
first the hair burns off your thoughts and the vowels start stuttering backwards like liquid clocks.
there’s a booth. it sells dreams. not your dreams—someone else's. you buy a kid's nightmare for five ticks of a static-wound pocketwatch and the barkeep cackles molasses.
THE SPINDLECLOWN KEEPS SCORE.
he’s not a clown. he’s a concept. a wriggling sigh in the seams of meat-reality. his balloon animals bite. they’re real.
you try to leave.
but the EXIT signs spell TXIEE in flickering wet neon. backwards is the only way out. but which way is that?
the demon faires don’t arrive.
they unhappen.
one second the forest’s calm, then the next there’s techno-calliope music bouncing between the ribs of the trees like echoing wrongs.
you ever seen a centipede made of brass and regret? it runs the merry-go-scream.
get on. get off.
you’re still on.
TICKETMASTER IS A LIE.
the tickets are carved into your memories.
you lose your 5th birthday for a corndog that whispers financial advice.
your mother’s laugh buys you a turn on the galloping coffin ride.
screams optional. regret mandatory.
they don’t take cash—only chronoslip.
the faires run on time.
like, literally. they burn time to move.
every attraction consumes a decade.
kids enter adults. adults leave with baby teeth.
one guy turned into a calendar and now he just sobs Februarys.
THE DEMON FAIRES KNOW YOUR NAME.
they’ve known it since before you had one.
they’ve got it written on the undersides of the carousel horses’ tongues.
you think that cotton candy’s safe? it’s insulation from forgotten futures.
eat it and you’ll remember a lover who hasn’t happened yet.
kiss them. they vanish.
STOP LAUGHING. THE POPCORN IS LISTENING.
one time i made the mistake of trading eye contact with the Tilt-a-God.
now every 3rd word I say belongs to Him.
(hi)
the faires move in pulses.
not geographically. existentially.
sometimes they’re outside Des Moines. sometimes they’re inside your kitchen drawer.
don’t open it. don’t open it. don't look under the spoons.
"COME ONE, COME NONE!" they scream.
because the more of you comes, the less of you leaves.
you ever met the Demon Faire Queen?
her crown is made of shopping receipts and her tongue is pure VHS tape.
she told me a joke once.
i’ve never stopped laughing.
not once.
not in 9,000 years.