An Excerpt

Fate connects the past and present, and It reminds an individual of the life they’ve lived. Whether by a dream, or something as simple as walking into a drugstore and glancing at a Time magazine, there have been and will be constant reminders of the past. It watches and takes care of everything, from clocks to roads to crops in a field. Fate is a mischievous power who will every now and then give an individual glimpse of their future, their own small pieces of Itself in all of Its terror; a vision. Solo will never forget the night Fate visits his consciousness, when his eyes open for the first time as he will be forced to observe the world for what it really is.
During the moment the sun retires for her rest, Solo travels along a damp, foreign street that possesses a putrid scent of vomit and wine. He stumbles, drunk with the fresh evening’s bootleg whiskey, and discovers himself before a circus. They are gathering away their big top that must have stood in the abandoned field that lay ahead, and are now bearing the impression of farewell.
A one-eyed midget has just finished locking up a weary tiger when he notices Solo. The circus member looks up at him with anger and shouts, “Don’t you care about the world’s problems?”
Presented with the question without beware is blasphemy! Among all of his might, the visionary swallows his anger, which had risen above his insobriety trying to reach his throat, back into his chest. The shakes that breathe from Solo’s body and heart long to be proclaimed from his tongue; the reaction to a precious blues that were to remarkably distressful he could not cry. Yet now that this circus freak before him has slipped the drug of truth into his cup, now the young man feels the genesis of tears that will fall soon within time.
“How can I justify that question if you have the audacity to ask me?” Solo drags himself away into the gutters of society, a desolate alley.
Though it is hatred Solo facades, the visionary feels hurt after the question was raised. Nonetheless, he glares at the one-eyed midget that follows him into the deserted side-way. His mind is baffled and the thoughts within do not make sense concerning him personally. To join with the confusion the young man’s eyes are unnaturally clouded and the world around him is dimmed as a flick show replaces his sight. The circus radical forces Solo to absorb this vision as he stares at the barren back streets of the world.
A battleground bursts into Solo’s consciousness. There is a sea that is so contaminated with blood that the fish are carried dead to the shore. Though it is day, the sun refuses to shine for humanity as it hides behind the smoke of ammunition. Many men are able to do nothing but run and fire their weapons, hoping to Fate it does not settle upon their friends. There are soldiers crying out for their mothers as their bodies are turned inside out, men are falling dead, piling up around Solo.
“Take me back! Take me back!” the visionary violently screams for the circus freak that has vanished.
Solo listens to the noise of gunfire and pandemonium, but among the hallucination and discord, his ears perk upon a man’s pleas. He turns and gives his attention to a young man who is still, quiet, hunched over upon the ground behind an upside down boat. His gaze penetrates the wet sand with a concrete, brave expression as he holds onto his friend who screams out, blood and dirt caked onto his body.
“Mother! Oh my mother! Wipe the blood from my face. Oh please, I can’t see! Save me! My God, make up my dying bed! Mama, am I going to die? Mama, I want to go home! Oh God, I cared about the worl-“
The soldier’s cries are silenced as the blood in his body escapes when bullets penetrate his foot, leg, arm. Chest and heart. Neck. Cheek and head. Solo swears he can feel the red mist meet his skin even though this vision is only but a vision.
It was not the act of an enemy that ended the crying man, but the act of the still soldier who weeps after he silences his hopeless friend.
As man makes another move, Solo shouts, “No! Stop! You’re okay, you’re gonna be okay!”
The soldier does not pick up on Solo’s plea and ends his life as the alley comes back into Solo’s eyesight.
The vision has ended, but the visionary will not restrain his cries. He flinches at every shadow and murmur; he shields himself from the calm voice of his company as the midget speaks.
“Humanity and its leaders say that war is inevitable, as long as man has an opinion or a desire there will always be war! That in order to recover whatever peace is left, that this is what will happen. Inevitably! My conclusions are that if the universe was in their reach, they would destroy it. Do you know why? It is beca-“
“No, I don’t want to know! I don’t want this. Why are you just standing there calm?! Why are you so… You’re so calm!” Solo cries to the pavement. “There are people dying! For what?! You tell me why that is!”
“In each man there is a desire that cannot be satisfied. Man will believe this desire is for more materials or new relationships, but it’s the soul of man screaming out for a new horizon. It is a new day that man needs to experience, and to break free from rituals, forced relationships, and the expectations of society. The human race has forgotten about love. To love a stranger is to have been in the presence of God, or Fate, or whatever you decide to call the miracles on this earth. It is of that pure goodness man needs to live and search for, not the lies that have been set before them.”
“But why hast thou made me thy mark?” Solo screams to his knees and sinks into the gutter with a cry as he ponders the knowledge the circus radical has shared.
The visionary’s screams drags the attention of a raven-haired beauty, who walks over to stand beside her circus friend.
“How does it feel?” she looks down to Solo.
The young man stares upon nothing, his state of mind calms as he thinks of emotion, “I knew of all kinds of religion and witchcraft, discovered vertigo through a series of reds. With no sense of time, looking through me eyes was like looking through a kaleidoscope. All the colors and shapes formed victims hanging by their trees. I don’t know and don’t want to know about it. Then this one-eyed midget shouts a vision. Now I feel as if I’ve walked many ways; highways, walkways, stairways, hallways, oh alleyways! I will never be able to have ideas anymore; the result of what you geeks have shown me! This is a burden that will be carried alone! How can I love knowing that this is what the human race is capable of?”
The woman who eats hearts smiled and laughed, “Beware of love. It is temporary and will not find you in good health.”
“If humanity were to speak only pure truth for a short day, then the universe would be torn from its seams,” begins a sword swallower that walks up and stands beside his circus friends. “They lie so often that if truth be told the earth would go in flames of anarchy and chaos and terror and oh! Humanity would not be able to handle the truth. Beware of this.”
At last, a circus clown overhears the echoes of conversation and makes his way to the small crowd of people. He observes the visionary who holds himself upon the sewers of the public, he nods to the circus artists, and he asks Solo, “What are you going to do about this? You can stop it, so don’t you care?”
Solo looks upon the small crowd of artists and acknowledges the tears that stain their cheeks. No more are they freaks to him, but people who are alive that have dismissed the act of only existing. A small child of two or three years looks down at Solo from the sword swallower’s arms. With dirt smudged on his nose, hair unkempt, clothes torn, it was a pitiful look the boy gave. Though the indigo child could not voice the word verbally, his bright eyes said it all.
“For my generation and the generations after,” the boy’s expression shared.
As Solo begins to sober up, he stands and answers the initial questions he was trying to evade.
“Yes, I do care about the world’s problems. My sanity has been disentangled and my soul has been animaled, but what am I supposed to do? How can I stop this war?”
As Solo admits his epiphany, the circus family vanishes. Yet they do not walk away, run away, or hide away. The troubadours left Solo within the alley by exploding into infinite, intense sparks and evaporating into the atmosphere. Solo questions the air; he is shocked and too weary to react to this magic. When the circus’ presence becomes only a memory, the young man notices a lingering whisper that carries the answer to his question. Solo ponders how fate is going to help him as another voice echoes from the main street.
“Solo West?” an officer of the law asks the visionary.
Before the young man can answer, the police officer chains him by his wrists and throws him into a police car.
“I don’t understand!” Solo begins to panic.
The policeman starts the vehicle and travels the highway at a furious rate as he admits, “We told you to get an education, get a job, go to college, entertain yourself with television and the radio, and concern yourself with materials, start a family, and die! We do not say you can go and think for yourself! We do not want you to infect others; you’re going to join Carl and Allen in the asylum!”
Solo studies the cop’s glare in the dashboard window and realizes his eyes are red with hysteria. The policeman is trembling violently and his animalistic smile appears inhuman. The man is fidgeting constantly and mutters to himself frantically. Solo concludes the officer of these laws is insane. This man who represents a controlled society is not well, but Solo is not afraid.
The visionary has not failed to remember the indigo child’s eyes, the circus’ teachings, and Solo will never forget the visions Fate has given him. Solo believes that Fate will take care of him, the one-eyed midget said it. The visionary will play along with civilization’s game until It presents the inevitable chance for him to change the world’s madness.
Solo looks up among his chains, he asks you… Yes, you!
So maybe only when we acknowledge what we refuse to proclaim, we can keep moving towards that certain direction that every healthy individual follows. Sometimes people will call it ‘God’, ‘Truth’, or another man-defined word, but it doesn’t matter. Life is too short, and I want to love you; the one who is breathing, crying, rocking shadow to shadow, the one who gives their heart! Oh! A harp stirs the very core of my soul; oh please send me in a direction. I want to be a character in everyone’s life; I don’t care what you believe in as long as you show the love you are capable of.
Solo asks you, “Are you alive, or are you another everyday individual that comes out of a cereal box?
"Do you care about the world’s problems?”