The Circus

He used to bet on pantomime horses and somehow always win. As the chief clown he always knew which way the wind blew because quite frankly, he was the one blowing the raspberries. Always the contrary character, if you told him the sky was blue, he’d call you a liar. With a photo in his hand of the bluest cloud-free skyscape he would tell you it was green, or pink, or even yellow. He’d tell you it was all of these colours at the same time, contradicting himself with every breath but never letting it show.

Because he had an infectious grin that went off like Guy Fawkes night whenever he made a joke at the expense of other people’s lives, we would book tickets and take the kids to watch him gloat while he bullied some innocent and feckless fools who probably actually had it coming. Oh, how we’d laugh as he put them in the stocks. 

And it was simply because he looked like the village idiot he could do no harm, he was one of us. 

“It’s probably not malcontent when you have a brain the size of a pea.” 

“He’s just a funny guy.”

“A man of the people.”

“The right man for the job.”

Nobody could tell the difference between his custard pies and his hand grenades. We mistook war paint for clown makeup and nobody noticed as he’d stab them in the face.

Because he had his name in lights and was a real hit in the ratings, we offered up our firstborn to him. In exchange, he promised to keep the enemies from our door. The tigers in their cage. He was a man of his word and his word could be broken. 

He’d send out the brightest and the best onto the high-wire while he loaded tigers into the cannon and aimed it toward the roof of the big top. The room was aghast as one-by-one he shot down entertainers and strongmen. And nobody mentioned the elephant in the room as it hurtled toward the face of the trapeze artist who dared to ask why. Those in the cheap seats applauded, while anyone who found it unsightly just closed their eyes.

When the reviews came in, they said he gave a ‘gutsy performance’ and that he was just out there making the world a better place, even if it meant rubbing pies in a few faces or feeding the tamer to the lion. 

The clues were there for all the world to see. If he stood with a placard that said that he was leading up the garden path and that he’d kill you when you got there, you’d still be interested in seeing the rhododendron that he promised to show you in the furthest flower bed. 

All of these things were clearly visible. Painted large. The greatest show on Earth. 

And yet we all let him rule our world. 

Who is the biggest fool now?