He rode into town at the sound of the horn. The mist moved with him as though he commanded the breath of the earth itself. Long dead Redcoats marched at his side, their lanterns flickering like captive stars. Children and adults alike have been waiting in feverous anticipation for The Beast’s arrival —we laugh and cheer and scream with an excitement that’s been brewing all year. A coat of polka-dotted polyester, damp with the perspiration of his caretakers and the afternoon rain, clings loosely to his fiberglass skeleton. Exposing his wire sinew and plastic veins, he struts through the square knowing he is our pride and joy. Our carnival messiah. We watch in awe.
He floats through his movements and we all blissfully ignore the tangle of legs and limbs that kick and squirm between his hollow ribs. We like the illusion. He pauses. His mane lashes gently in the salty breeze, each strand of paracord and cast aside sailors’ line, a tell-tale testing the wind for omens. Then he smiled, that terrible, perfect grin: his equine lips pulled back as if stapled into place, taut in eternal defiance, a set of shiny clay teeth gleaming against the gray sky. An explosion of crimson flame erupts from his gaping jaws—he is the leader in the annual crusade.
The time has come. The band plays, filling the air with brass prophecy, drums rolling like distant thunder.
He turns. His fluorescent hooves point towards the sea. The father of his maker blesses him with words swallowed by the wind, and we all wish him luck on his journey. Driven by an anonymous kinetic energy he lopes onward. Trailed by his henchmen just as they came, THE BEAST is ready to test his fate at the Dead Man’s Drop. ▲
