Please Read:
The Freak’s Fortune

Excerpt:

The freak sits on his little wicker chair, his squinty eyes, like black marbles, following the passersby of the fair. Families and couples, young and old, they all pass by the tent with its big wooden sign advertising, The Freak Show. Simply painted portraits show the grotesque creatures inside, malformed animals, malformed men, and the things in between.

The freak’s stubby hand clasps a wooden fan, which at times is seized in quick, little bursts of fevered wristwork, at times lies still against the man’s breast, but mostly moves in gradual ups and downs. He is sweating. Large beads are seen forming on his brow and he feels others rolling down his back. It’s too hot, the air too thick, but he smiles when someone comes near, calling them into his tent of horrors with a broad grin and a light laugh.

His voice is airy and high, strange to hear to the strangers he meets, but his charm offputs his offputting features, or strives against them. He seems sweet, some say, others might say effeminate. He is, though he rarely mentions it, a eunuch, or as good as one. Born strange, unlike his brothers and sisters in body, unlike them in mind as well.

It was hard to say exactly what his mind was. He would laugh at things no one else would, or say things no one could quite understand; at least, no one could understand them when he said them. Time, however, would often unveil his cryptic remarks. It was wondered at that a creature with such beady little eyes could possess such powerful insight. Perhaps the organ he relied on was not his eyes but his ears; they were rather large, it is true.

His mother, perhaps the only person who ever loved him, swore up and down that he was gifted. After all, she would say, he is the seventh son of a seventh son. His father considered him a bastard, though, and treated this flabby thing as the unhallowed spawn of some devil.

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