Noah Vogel loved the sideshow at the circus. It was the only place where he felt
normal, for the simple fact that nothing there was normal. Everything was over-the-top,
exotic, and grand. Things that were unnatural were natural. Things that were grotesque
aroused wonder rather than fear. The circus was a safe haven for freaks like Noah Vogel.
The only problem was that circuses were rare in these days, and sideshows were
practically nonexistent, the biggest reason being the shift in aesthetics brought about by
the Beautiful Age. Medical advances had made it so that everyone could be beautiful, but
more importantly, so that everyone had to be beautiful. Physical deformities were a thing
of the past and even individualizing quirks—such as birthmarks or scars—were no longer
widespread and socially acceptable. The only people allowed to be ugly were those who
were condemned to such lives—people who had committed rape, murder, child abuse,
and other such unspeakable acts. To be looked upon with repulsion day after day… it was
worse than death. Prisons had, in a way, become the new circuses: cells filled with
hideous people, all dressed in garish orange jumpsuits. Most saw this as a poetic form of
justice—the humane solution to capital punishment. But there were flaws in the system.
After all, being ugly on the outside meant that people would assume you were evil. And
in Noah's case, being ugly was neither a choice nor a sentence. He was one of the rare
poor souls whom the new order had failed.
The reason Noah was heading to the circus on this particular day was because he
thought he might belong there. When people were released from prison, with their new
awful faces, there were not many places for them to work. The lucky ones released for
less heinous crimes could sometimes get jobs as mascots, but most were forced into jobs
where they would remain hidden: miners, welders, nightshift janitors. Another alternative
was a job that demanded ugliness. Few such occupations existed, but the sideshow was
certainly one of them.
Most people would be afraid to go somewhere where many of the employees
were known criminals. But Noah figured that when he revealed his deformity to them,
they would immediately accept him as one of their own. There was nothing to fear. He
resolutely marched up to the gates of Murdle's Famous Circus, which transcended over
him—thick bars coated in golden leaf paint, peeling off in sections to reveal black iron
beneath. The words were printed in brassy red letters on an old wooden board, with the
subtext, Home of the Last Freak Show, scribbled beneath. The ticket stand was just above
Noah's head, so he had to stand on his tiptoes to see the man behind it. He was an older
man—Noah estimated about 80, though he looked more like 50—with a book opened up
in front of him. Noah coughed a couple of times to get the man's attention.
"Can I help you, boy?" he grumbled, his eyes drifting between Noah and the
nearly barren parking lot behind him. Noah was the only person in line—the only one
who had been in line for the past hour—and it was 5:45 in the evening.
"One ticket please."
"Shouldn't you be off playing with toy cars or climbing trees or something? What
are you doing here all by yourself?"
"One ticket, please, Sir. I'd like to see the freak show."
"The show started over an hour ago, and we close in fifteen minutes, son."
"That's alright. I only needed to see part of it."
The man's brow crumpled as he stared down at Noah, who was a frail little thing.
About twelve years old, a little short for his age, and skinny. He was handsome—as
handsome as any other little boy, that is—but in a different way. He didn't have the
ruddy, masculine features that most boys requested when they went under the knife every
few years. Rather, he had delicate features: a small pointed nose, thin lips, pale green
eyes, white skin with rosy cheeks stricken by the brisk November wind. Feathery locks of
reddish-brown hair framed his perfect face. His frailty looked odd compared with his
attire: loose cargo pants that ended just below the knee, revealing stick legs, and an
enormous gray sweatshirt that devoured his body. After visually assessing Noah, the
ticket man took his dollar coin, handed him a bright red ticket stub, and opened the gate.
The place was desolate. Most parents did not bring their children to the circus for
the obvious reason that felons worked there. The people that went were mostly teenagers
and young adults—thrill-seekers or people intrigued by the unfamiliar. A couple of high
school students were standing over by the main stage watching an act that was just
ending: Lobster Boy. The boy, who looked to be about fifteen, had grotesquely
malformed hands with most of the fingers fused together.
"Ew, they're horrible!" said girl, fiercely gripping the sleeve of her boyfriend’s
coat. Her eyes bulged at the sight of the claws, and the color of her cheeks took on a
greenish tint. Noah stepped cautiously away, afraid that the girl might get sick.
"I've seen this before," said the boy, who seemed less frightened but equally
appalled. "There was this lady on the news who was convicted of stealing babies from the
maternity ward at the hospital and selling them illegally, like to families that have trouble
adopting. How sick is that? The judge sentenced her to be injected with that thing”—he
motioned to Lobster Boy’s hands—“that ancient birth defect people used to get during
the Old Age. This way, everyone would see her hideous claws if she ever tried to kidnap
babies again." Snatching newborns out of their mothers' laps and selling them like pirated
movies? Noah cringed. This boy must have done something equally wretched.
But then Noah thought, what if Lobster Boy was innocent just like him? Maybe
the circus wasn’t a place for criminals after all. Maybe it was a sanctuary for lost souls
who had been dealt a rotten share of luck. Medical wonders couldn’t possibly fix
everyone. Surely, Noah thought, he couldn’t be the only decent ugly person left in the
world. As Lobster Boy meandered offstage, Noah gazed after him sympathetically.
The next and final act was Snake Man. Noah anxiously crept closer to the stage.
A thin, wormy looking man covered in crusty green scales stood wearing only blue
swimming trunks. He slithered across the stage, rotating so that the small audience could
view him at every horrible angle. At one point he hissed at the teenage girl, revealing a
long forked tongue—causing her to shriek and retreat into her boyfriend’s arms. The boy
hugged her close and glared at Snake Man with the deepest hatred Noah had ever seen.
Snake Man then directed his attention toward Noah, swooping down in one fluid motion
and staring him dead in the eye. From inches away, Noah could see that Snake Man’s
eyes were monstrous yellow orbs with black slits. He thought they were beautiful.
Everything about Snake Man looked so bizarre, yet so very real. His flaking emerald skin
was meant to be horrifying, but to Noah, it was comforting. He realized how relatively
normal he looked compared to Snake Man; any fears of rejection clouding his mind were
at once absolved.
At the end of the act, Snake Man receded into the background, and the curtains
dropped. Mr. Murdle himself walked onto the stage.
He was an extremely tall, primordial man with shiny white hair that felt down to
his shoulders, and soft facial features that mimicked Noah's, though with the addition of
shallow creases indicating his advanced age. In a confident, silky voice he spoke into the
microphone to address the few people remaining on the circus grounds. His voice
resounded from every speaker throughout the venue: "Thank you, all of you. I hope you
enjoyed yourselves, as always, but it's closing time, sadly. Hope you enjoyed our freaks!
Have a safe ride home, and come back again! Good night." Everyone, including the two
teenagers, cleared out—except for Noah. The added altitude of the stage combined with
Mr. Murdle's severe height made him look like Goliah, and Noah like David—an ant.
The giant frowned down at the boy, and spoke once again. "We're closing, son. Go
home."
"Please Sir, I came today looking for a job."
Mr. Murdle's face remained unchanged. "We're not hiring. Sorry, boy."
"Please! Please just hear me out. I got something special."
Mr. Murdle examined the boy curiously, and lowered the microphone down to his
hip. "Alright, you can show the gang what you got, I suppose. You got just five minutes,
though. See, we all wanna get home. I can't promise you anything." He bent down and
offered his hand to Noah, who accepted and carefully climbed up onstage. They walked
behind the curtains into the backstage area. There, Noah saw all of the performers,
including the acts he had missed—a bearded lady, a monkey boy, a woman who was
obscenely fat, and many more. They had all been engaged in conversation but stopped
their chatter as soon as Noah and Mr. Murdle entered. "Alright, boy. Show us what you
got."
This was it. This was his moment. Noah prayed this would be the day he would
find a home—a happy family full of freaks. He unzipped his enormous gray sweatshirt
and then pulled his shirt up over his head, inhaling deeply as the cold autumn air stung
his exposed chest. He kicked off his sneakers and shed the socks from his feet. Lastly, he
untied his cargo pants, letting them drop to the ground, and then the underpants followed.
This entire time the group of performers stared at him with wrinkled looks of confusion,
but none of them dared to speak. Noah turned around so that his back was facing them.
He let go of the breath he'd been holding in all this time and the cramped webbed wings
folded up against his spine finally extended—spanning about eight feet across. They were
flesh-colored, like the rest of Noah. Even more horrifying was what swung back and forth
between his legs: a short thin tail, sharp and pointed like an arrowhead.
The air had been sucked out of the place. Not a word was said for what seemed
like an hour, until the silence became unbearable for Noah. He cautiously turned around
to see a crowd of mixed expressions: horror, disgust, and contempt. Had he made a
mistake? Surely he was no more unseemly than the rest of them. He turned to Snake
Man, but even he glared at Noah as though he were the spawn of evil. Lobster Boy
looked paler than the rest of them, and vomited into his huge, deformed hands, which he
subsequently slipped off and tossed aside. Gloves—they were gloves, not hands. Oh no,
Noah thought to himself. He felt as if someone had driven a serrated knife into his gut.
As he skimmed the crowd of performers, the reality began to sink in: the entire act was a
hoax. Snake Man was wearing body make-up to give the illusion of scales. The bearded
lady's facial hair was glued onto her chin. The obese woman was merely wearing a fat
suit. What a terrible error Noah had made…
Mr. Murdle stood up, his face somber, and demanded, "What evil thing have you
done?"
Noah's eyes grew wide. "Nothing, I swear! I was born this way."
"Impossible! You wretched thing! You evil beast!" Mr. Murdle roared as he took
a step foreword. Noah's bony knees began to quiver.
"No, no, please. I'm telling the truth!"
"Filthy liar! What have you done?"
Other performers began to chime in. "Horrible little boy!"
"Demon!"
"Abomination!"
Soon, the overlapping voices became one riotous chant: "Freak! Freak! Freak!"
They all formed a circle around Noah. After realizing that Snake Man and Lobster
Boy had blocked off the entrance to the tent, he desperately looked for a way out. Mr.
Murdle knelt down to pick up a large, heavy stone, and menacingly approached Noah.
The other performers followed his lead and prepared to launch their rocks. Suddenly,
Noah darted off the ground like a cannon. The tips of his wings pierced the roof of the
tent, and he flew up into the gray, darkening sky. The air was painfully frigid, and he was
naked, but he dared not go back for his clothes. He carried on into the night, higher and
higher, farther and farther away, so that Murdle's Famous Circus was only a tiny red dot
beneath him. Bullets of rain shot down from the heavens, and thunder roared all around
Noah, but he carried on for hours, never once stopping or looking anywhere but straight
ahead. He would continue to fly until God took mercy on him and fried him to a crisp
with a lightning bolt, or until, by some miracle, he stumbled upon other freaks like him.