Don’t Panic. You just might turn out to be one of the lucky ones. 

Do not join in the acts. The circus will think you are one of its own and keep you. 

The music is trying to charm you. Play hard to get. 

The Ringmaster will look like they have two heads. They do. Do not listen to either; they both lie.

Do not go into the back tent. Yes, I do hear the screams and yes, I hear what they are saying. But they do not belong to us, they belong to the circus. Come away now, we mustn’t be seen here. 

The clowns don’t look at all like you expect them too. I would advise against looking for their faces. 

Eat nothing that is offered to you. You can’t know from what plane of existence it came from, or to what new master it will bind you.

The Circus does have animals. They are not from this plane of existence, but they certainly are magnificent. One even looks like a duck. 

Do not wander the grounds around the Circus. You may think you know these fields like the back of your hand, you grew up here after all. But these are no longer those fields; something new has taken their place for the night. 

Never allow the Circus to set up its tents on your land, or else you too will be replaced by something new. But only for the night.

The Magician is fake. The Automaton is real.  

I must insist you do not enter the Hall of Mirrors. What comes out will not be you and where you come out will not be here. 

All your earthly problems will disappear if you join the circus, and they will be more than happy to take you. After all, a human is a novel attraction and can always be relied upon to draw a crowd. 

The washrooms are on the left beside the Big Top.

If you can manage it, just don’t go. Just don’t go to the Circus, it will save you quite a bit of trauma, and both of us quite a bit of trouble. But I suppose I cannot stop you.

You mustn’t scream when the acrobats come out. They will hear you, and insist you join them. They will tell you it will be fun, but your bones aren’t meant to bend that way. They will break you. 

Despite what you see at the Circus, you mustn’t make a sound. You must not weep, scream, or rage. At the Circus, every sound you make is laughter and if you aren’t careful, they may think that you are enjoying the show. 

• dusk. dusk all the time. dusk at 1pm in the afternoon. why is it still dusk out, you’ve been here for three days and you can’t find your way back to the ticket booth. 

• red and white and black stripes everywhere, the scent of heavily buttered popcorn and candy apples and french fries and fried dough thick in the air.

• the fortune teller who waves her hands dramatically over a crystal ball, trying not to laugh as she spells out a future of doom from under her scarves and big earrings and heavy eyeliner, but before you leave her tent she grips your hand with bony fingers and whispers frantically, “please be careful. please don’t go into the big top.”

• rows of clowns applying their makeup, and the glimpse of the completely blank, smooth, featureless faces underneath that you can catch if you watch them closely enough.

• contortionists twisting and bending and swirling their colorful ribbons, sweet smoke unfurling all around them. sometimes eyes blink out from the tendrils, wet and watchful.

• a silent child in a silk vest and top hat pushing you urgently toward the big top. you try to resist, but they only push harder. they feel as strong as a grown man.

• how the hell is it still dusk? it’s been a week now.

• someone sells you a souvenir, a little wooden keepsake box. When you pull up the red velvet lining of its bottom, someone has carved strange sigils there.

• carnival guests appearing out of nowhere in inappropriate clothes - business suits and medical scrubs and office wear, stumbling around blinking and saying over and over, “what the hell? how did I get here?”

• a mime mimics a dramatic death scene, eliciting laughs as he topples and flails his way to the ground, silently gasping before collapsing in a lifeless heap. then he doesn’t move. he doesn’t move for fifteen minutes. twenty. twenty-five.

• the ticket taker’s booth, finally. her hands tremble slightly, and her smile doesn’t quite reach her scared eyes when she says, “no re-entry if you leave now. you really shouldn’t try to leave now.” two strange men with bizarrely pale skin and deep-set eyes are watching you talk to her, approaching. closer now.

• the lion tamer’s cage. the lion is sleeping now, but in the dirt by his water bowl a claw has scratched out the words. “MY NAME WAS GERALD. I’VE BEEN HERE FOR FOURTEEN YEARS.”