The next morning, I hurried down to the carnival grounds. I was far too early for the show, yet it may as well have been over for all I cared, for that was not the reason I had returned. It was not the performance that I hoped to catch, however magnificent it had been. I pushed past patrons and blatantly ignored the alluring side-shows. When I came upon the mud spot where I had fallen the night before, the anger I had been bottling up finally managed to uncork itself. I threw down my hat in frustration, running my fingers harshly through my hair. The fortune teller’s stand was gone.

     I stomped about (and I am embarrassed to admit) acted in quite the uncouth manner. I went around, shouting at passersby and carneys to tell me whether they had seen where the wily witch had gotten off to. After a fruitless round of unhelpful responses and successless searching, I wound up back where I had started. I slowly began to regain my composure, and as I knelt to pick up my abandoned hat (still there, waiting dejectedly for me) my eyes met those of a familiar glint... the caged freak, still rattling in his cell.

     My blood boiled. I wanted nothing more than to forget that circus. To leave and never let it cross my mind again. However, my stinginess would not allow it until I had at least attempted to recover my stolen pocket watch. I continued hunting my quarry, hoping she had simply moved her booth to a more advantageous location (and not yet across the country). The grounds were fairly empty, and admittance into the tent was not yet allowed. Nevertheless, I snuck past the ticket man and under the dark tarp. Perhaps I could find the mischievous mistic mingling with the rest of the circus troupe.

     The performers were lively and roaming the ring, but it was clear they were still preparing for the show. Sticking to the shadows to remain unseen and prevent immediate dismissal, I observed them as they practiced. They were on the wires, juggling pins, and riding unicycles. A couple of clowns rehearsed lines. Yet, despite their painted masks, it was clear they shared the same face underneath, and so did all the others.

     I saw no sign of the senile thief and had decided to turn back before anyone noticed me when I was suddenly paralyzed by a cry of pain. I quickly slipped behind the stands and into the shadows. My heart skidded when I realized what had occurred. My ears rang with the heavy crash of metal bars and the deafening resonance of a vicious growl. Once the beast was back in its cage, its victim fell to his knees. His ribcage rose and fell rapidly, ragged breaths echoing over his sobs. He rested there, trembling, and twisting with pain and shock. The side of his face was gripped in his hand, blood trickling between his fingers and mixing with the dirt.

     As soon as I had caught wind of the details of the accident, so too had the lacerated lackey's employer. I was relieved to see the ringmaster briskly stride to the injured man’s side. The animal tamer’s wound was deep and bloody. What he needed was medical attention. What he received was the ringmaster, not coming to aid him, but rather to aid in his suffering.

     As the shadow of the tall, garish showrunner fell over his humble servant, I was surprised by the looks on both their faces. The animal tamer did not wear a look of relief for aid, but rather of fear. While his face was caked in blood, and one eye was invisible beneath the carnage and his trembling hand, I could read it in his shining tears and his wrinkled brow that he was more afraid of the beast before him than the one he had wrestled back into the cage.

     The ringmaster’s face was twisted in a scowl. His lips were drawn tight into an evil snarl. If I had not seen his pearly, perfect smile as he announced the show only the night before, I would have pictured sharp fangs barely concealed behind that thin mouth. His irises seemed to me to glint red in the stage lights rather than their usual gray, which in itself always seemed dark and cold. The tall, imposing figure grabbed the man by the collar of his shirt, like some wretched dog, and yanked his bloodied hand from the wound.

     The animal tamer was indeed missing an eye, lost to the lion with which he was preparing for the show. Instead of jumping through hoops, the horrible creature had gotten the jump on its commander. A wicked set of claw marks, deeply cut into the man’s flesh, ruined his matching image with his ringmaster. As if to symbolize this breaking from the circus’ scheme, the ringmaster tossed his double upon the floor like an unwanted nuisance. The animal tamer cowered away, crawling back on hands and knees. He resembled some poor creature; a pet being abused, whimpering, and shrinking before his cruel master.

     The showrunner snatched the whip from where the tamer had dropped it and twisted it threateningly in his hands. He demanded an explanation, his cool crisp words tightening around their recipient like a snake. I remember the brief, strained conversation as it filled the nervous air. In between each spoken fragment, during the long pauses of unease that filled in when the tamer could not stutter out another word through his pain, the only noise to be heard was the ragged breathing of the injured man and the silent rebuke behind the reddened face of the ringmaster.

     “T-the lion, sir. It did… it didn’t want to get in the cage.” He paused, as if this small breath of words had completely drained him. His face was pale, and the red of his wound stood out more wickedly than ever. The empty pit of his stolen eye seemed filled with a shadow of deep terror. He gave a small huff and managed to continue, but his voice shook. “He got me, but I got ‘em back in his pen! N-nothing else is amiss.”

     The ringmaster let the tortured man’s words fall softly out of sound. The animal tamer, in the silence that followed his final hiss, listened to the echo of his own pain and dread before it faded away back into the discomforting quiet. The ringmaster stared off into space, slowly pacing before the crippled man. He looked as if to be pondering, evaluating his employee’s explanation, but beneath this blinding, equable facade I saw the disturbing truth. He already knew what he would do. How he would punish the poor bastard. The facts behind the misfortune did not matter to his sadistic mind. He let the suspense build, twisting the knife in the animal tamer’s wound. At last, he dug it out and repositioned it, readying his attack.

     “You great dunce! That lion must be under control and in position in time for the show! If not, I might as well stick you in the cage with him!” The ringmaster roared. The animal tamer still trembled in the dirt; his hand returned to its position over the side of his face. With the nasty wound hidden, his appearance seemed more composed and less humble, despite the panic that still pinned him on his knees. However, now that his master started to bark at him, he began to growl back.

     “Sir, I-I don’t think we should use ‘em in the show tonight. H-He’s fighting orders. It would be a danger to us and the audience.” Rather than listening to reason, the ringmaster was infuriated by his servant’s suggestion.

     “You dare try and tell me how to run my show?! He will be ready by the first act or else I will change the performance, and trust me, you would not want that. I could recreate the Roman Colosseum, with you and that lion in the lead roles! If you can’t even tame the beast, what are you worth? You are nothing.” I was taken aback by this appalling prospect, but the animal tamer was unshaken. As his master reviled him, he was gripped by a sudden shred of dignity. He raised himself slowly to his feet, wincing from pain and fear, yet defiant, nonetheless.

     “I-If I am nothing, then what does that make you? You’re a quarter of a man…. We make up more of you than you do yourself! Without us, you’re nothing, and you cannot harm me without damaging yourself! Your little show depends on us!”

     Smoke blew from the ringmaster’s ears as the animal trainer continued to kindle the fire. Something had sparked within him, like a bird long stuck in a cage suddenly given the pleasure of flight. He was ignited with passion and continued in a courageous voice. “I am a human being, same as you, and I demand respect!”

     He had hardly finished speaking when a sound like lightning crackled through the tent. The whip, which had only moments before belonged to its newest victim, snapped down over the animal tamer’s shoulder. The trainer immediately fell back to his knees and let out a distorted sob.

     “You are nothing to me! You could hardly even pose as my shadow. Without me, you would be no one. You wouldn’t even have an existence!” The ringmaster, his full wrath unleashed, let the whip fall over his slave’s back, then continued to rapidly lash him.

     The relentless whipping left the carny quivering, huddled with his head tucked under his arms and his knees curled up to his chest. As the whip fell upon its victim, so too did the ringmaster’s cruel insults ring in the poor man’s ears.

     “You have no life of your own, only my purpose! You are a phantom. A pitiful possibility that I nurtured and let be! If not for me, you wouldn’t live! I could have left you to your fate, never to rise to where you are. To rot in the hell of that dead-end existence!”

     The face that they had once both shared was now rendered unrecognizable. The one, concealed by blood and tears and horribly mangled, and the other so vicious and twisted that it resembled that of the snarling beast in the lion’s cage rather than the charming face of the circus. As soon as I saw the whip raise for that first blow, I jumped out from my hiding place and shouted out in protest.

     However, my call brought on a group of troupe members, and they wrestled me back, keeping me in place. Despite their efforts, my outrage fueled my strength, and I managed to pull free from their grasp. I ran up behind the brute, but the backlash of the whip caught me. Momentarily stunned, security swiftly hauled me from the scene. Before I could gather my senses, I was forced back into the crowd outside.

     At first, my rage remained. I shook circusgoers and begged them to assist me in saving the poor fellow I left behind in the big top. However, I was evaded by them all, automatically assumed to be some raving lunatic. I returned and peered back into the tent, but the men were gone. Not a trace of the previous occurrence was left, and even the dirt seemed cleaned of any evidence of abuse. I knew I was fighting an impossible battle. I was forced for the moment to forget what I had witnessed, and in truth, I had a hard time understanding what had occurred, let alone believing in what I had seen.

     My mind had been playing tricks on me, and even I began worrying I had gone mad. I had seen one man, or two very similar-looking men, torturing himself. But that wasn’t right. No matter how close in semblance they were, they were their own beings. I watched the ringmaster mar that perfect reflection of himself, but the ripples of the water (created by the lashes of the whip) made me realize the distorted image was not that of the slave, but of the slavedriver, his twisted scowl and furled brow that of the devil himself.

     I had seen two men, and I had seen one violently abuse the other. Yet there I had been, able to do nothing to assist the helpless creature huddled in the dirt. With regret, the bigger picture was suddenly revealed to me. The ringmaster was a maniac, running a show full of slaves. I pictured the showrunner indifferently exploiting his defenseless doppelgangers. This reality was reflected in the precision of the show I had watched. The fear that secretly shined in all those perfectly identical eyes. That shined in all of them...but one. The savage ringmaster, his own eyes cold and merciless, glared at his men with the opinion of them being below him; something inhuman... less than nothing.

     Through their resemblance to him, the ringmaster stopped seeing them as their own people. They were nothing but tools for him to use. I could see it, the performers’ master brutally working them, forcing them to act flawlessly and without protest. Beaten and berated until the show had reached a cold perfection. The circus may be run and performed by one man, but not by one mind. Those forgotten, ignored voices of the neglected circus crew suddenly cried out to my conscience. While the animal tamer’s punishment was now over, my guilt for having witnessed such a terrible act kept me going.

     I wandered around, looking for help, someone who might believe my story, but when the last call that the show was starting brought me back to the tent, I was forced to give up. Everything seemed to return to normal, the circus crew in position and any sign of corruption completely masked. The excited crowd was clueless, and I had no proof of what was going on behind the scenes.

     So it was that I found myself once again seated as the lights went down. As the drums began to pound, I gritted my teeth and tried to act oblivious myself. While I managed to blend once more into the crowd, I avoided drawing attention, not wanting to be escorted away from the premises, and set a plan to work in my mind. I would watch the show once more, looking for any signs of savagery; more hints as to what was truly going on there. If I was to play my part, I first needed to learn the plot.