BY THE LIGHT OF THE CARNIVAL

an excerpt from my published novel

BY THE LIGHT OF THE CARNIVAL

 

(from my published novel)

Joe is working at the carnival and at midnight he sees a woman collapse in the infamous glass maze. He helps her out and she is frightened ...

 

 

He asked her what happened in there. “What did you see?”

The woman closed her eyes and said things in a panicky foreign language. She opened her eyes and then looked oddly at Joe. Then she spoke in plain English. “Why are you looking at me? Who are you?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“Remember you from where? The PTA meetings? I don’t think I’ve seen you there. Where? Did I faint? What kind of crap do you color the snow cones with? Will I get cancer now?”

Joe pointed to the glass house. “Don’t you remember? In there?”

She looked and then put a trembling hand over her mouth. “A sad presence. Oh my God! I went in there. Did I? Or not? Am I going in or coming out?” She jolted. “Oh no, I had a terrible dream! I’m not going in there. Nobody should go in there!”

Joe shook his head. “You were in there and you had quite a fright. It’s good if you don’t remember.”

“I was in a dream. I was in somebody else’s dream. I was in somebody else’s head. I was trying to run over rubble. It’s hard to do that in high heels.” She looked down at her tennis shoes. “High heels. And I lost my hat. I had money hidden in my hat. All my money. And they thought I was a Jew but I’m not. I’m from India. I mean I was. In there, I was. But I couldn’t tell them. There was so much glass between me and them and I couldn’t tell anybody anything. They didn’t care. Either way, I wasn’t like them. But where was I?”

“Yeah, where?” Joe asked. “It don’t sound much like here. You’re getting a funny accent.”

“I was trying to get out. Trying to hide my money. I hid something in…” She looked in wonder at the glass house. “Something is hidden in there. And I know it. Some dead woman has put her mind into my poor noggin… I can see it all now.”

“What?”

“Something that’s made me too mad to rest. I want it back! I don’t want to be ripped off! Damn it! The lights went out. There was no moon and it was so dark you couldn’t see anything. I was at the carnival to hide in the crowd, the lights went out, and I ran as fast as I could in my damn heels. In the pitch-black darkness I came to some rubble and knew I’d gone too far and had left the carnival grounds and had come to an old bomb crater at the end of the lane. I didn’t want to be alone so I turned, and as I eased my way along, I finally felt a trailer.

 

look at all my novels at my website! http://peterjosephswanson.weebly.com/

 

 

Reviews

[Marc]

Interesting read. Also a great way to grab attention for your novel ;) Now I'm going to need to see your webpages.

[NoneOfYourBusiness akaK..]

you give the BESTEST Dioluge!!!! LOVE IT!!!!~