Junkyard Circus Junkyard Circus

words by max lees illustration by jennifer fong-li

It begins with a silence beneath the tinted sky where only a word or two tumble out a slot in the door and risk being lost in the wind.

Deadbeats wander and pick through immature mountains of debris, old books and warped jeans piled on top of burnt pages of journals and graves for dogs.

The train makes its hundredth stop at the maze of mirrors, on a charted course going nowhere fast, so fast that the passengers are put to sleep and the conductor doesn’t notice the tapping on the glass above and around—

The clowns cue the music, laughing through tear-shaped painted eyes.

The tapping forms clouds that start to rain, and the band gets louder and lights dart faster and fog consumes the faces, the train, the junk, the sky.

But nothing to fear inside colourful tents and sugar boats— Poets and acrobats perform their greatest, most wildest, totally improvised gravity-defying masochism tango against yellows and reds of their grand stage, flying so high they almost catch the scent of rain but plummet back down, followed by pink parades of pachyderms, mice and technicolour drums, piano keys and trumpet bands blasting till their lungs give out while monkeys swing from end to end, no balance beams or high theatrics, just chaos, noise, and high showmen, shouting with their laughing gas, it’s almost gone! come while you can! the kids in the back laugh hysterically like it’s the funniest damn show they’ve ever seen (and it is), and place bets on when the storm pounding and pooling on the roof will finally—

Crash the party with thunder, then silence, then rain. Leaving only a child who sits and stares at the junkyard circus black box funhouse and a hole in the sky with a patch tacked on.

Words And

photo by Michael Mejia