John Budan
Guilty
The dusty midway of the county fair between the Ferris wheel and the penny arcade, a colorful banner flaps in the wind: “See World’s Fattest Man, Only Ten Cents.” I entered with the kid’s half-price ticket. The stench inside the livestock trailer where he was sprawled over bales of straw was overwhelming. Calmly smoking his corncob pipe, he rolled his head toward me, and I looked into his dark penetrating eyes. Children eating cotton candy hugged colorful balloons and giggled. The crowd pointed fingers at the eleven hundred pounds of human flesh, their cameras flashing over and over.
The spectacle never ended for me. During my bleakest of dream nights, a kind overweight gentleman sometimes appears and whispers in my ear, “Did you enjoy the show?”
hospice unit the circus clown closes his eyes unable to smile one last time
About the Author
John Budan has published widely. He lived in France where he found his alter ego Guignol in Paris at the Jardin du Luxembourg.