Waitchalun Circus: Social diseases

I watch and listen as the lights go out and a hush descends upon the crowd as all await what comes next. Then, the lights snap on in an instant on the most outrageous and impossible looking people I have ever seen; some on wires that crisscrossed the tent, some holding aloft huge barrels and blocks, others seem to be floating in midair, and the animals! There were normal horses and lions and tigers, but there were other creatures that had features from numerous animals or looked like nothing I had ever seen and-was that a dragon??!! Yeah, it had scales and claws and wings and was spewing fire out of its mouth and into one of the performers-a fire swallower who looked like a dragon too?-but it couldn’t be real, right? The show included many different performances that entranced everyone. There were many acts that dealt with skills anyone could learn, but there were things that were just pretend, right? Eh, who cares, right now fantasy was reality as the Waitchalun Circus began.

I join the crowd leaving the show, making sure that no one notices me, looking left and right-what the!? Something slams into me, small, but heavy.

“Sorry” A small monkey boy tells me, I think he’s one of the acrobats, he must not have had time to take off his costume, he has fur covering the outside of his face, and his arms and the tail waving around behind him.

“That’s why you don’t blecking touch a dragon’s wings! Do you need another example?” A tall, older boy asks with the most evil grin I’ve ever seen and his glowing green eyes implying murder. Oh, and there was one of the dragon things behind him, which makes him more menacing, not to mention the fact that he looks like a cross between a dragon and a human, dark scale spiraling around his body, around his eyes, receding into his hairline, and teeth that resemble fangs, and even wings and a tail.

“Yay, examples! Here’s an example of an outierledge” an impish girl with a crooked smile, silver eyes, and orange hair exclaims pulling an exotic flower apparently from nowhere and offering it to him. Monkey boy laughs, the dragon guy looks at her in surprise, but takes the flower.

“Hey, I’m Tom” I start, partly trying to distract them so they don’t ask questions about me and partly out of genuine curiosity, “How do you uhm, I mean what is the dragon really?”

They look at me in surprise. “Oh, right, this is one of those universes where dragons aren’t real.” The dragon guy says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“And I’m Taszam, this is Zayluna” the monkey boy says pointing to the girl, “and Vezari is the mean one.” he finishes, dodging a blow from Vezari’s tail.

“HUHN!!!??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN? THAT’S A REAL DRAGON!? AND ONE OF THOSE UNIVERSES?” I shout, shocked. None of it made sense, what he’s saying is impossible.

They laughed in response.

“Do you really want to know? Then come with us and have everything you know be swept away.” Zayluna said with a laugh as she and the other run, cartwheel, and fly? into the circus grounds.

“Wait up!” I exclaim running after them as fast as I can through the maze of tents. I finally catch up to them in a tent near the edge of the circus, and what I see is even more unbelievable than what happened in the show. The performers and others… it was as though the laws of physics didn’t apply to them, they were walking on walls and ceilings and through anything and everything, except other people for some reason. And… they didn’t all look human- some had features of various animals, or just… seemed off somehow, like their proportions weren’t right, or even just moved oddly. I see the girl and boys and dragon in a corner of the tent, the girl waving me over.

I walk over to them. “They’re going through things,…and on walls,… and they’re…they’re…” they laugh.

“We’re Caleum Laus, Four dimensional beings from another universe with different physical laws than, well, any universe. Because of those physical laws, we evolved as four dimensional beings with cool abilities.” Zayluna explained.

“What do you mean four dimensional?” I asked.

“Ugh, dots are zero dimensional. Lines are one dimensional. Squares and circles and hexagons and other shapes are two dimensional. Cubes and spheres and humans are three dimensional. Hyper cubes and hyper spheres and us are four dimensional.” Vezari says glaring at me like I’m an idiot as images of what he’s explaining appear in thin air.

“Ok, but how is that important?”

“For lots of things! See, if you take this cube, and insert it into the square’s plane of vision, it can only see a small part of it at a time. If it’s inserted this way” Zayluna explains putting the cube image from Vezari’s explanation parallel to the square “it looks like a fellow square! But if we insert it this way” she continues turning the cube so it’s on a corner “it goes from dot to triangle to square to triangle ad to dot again.” she moves the cube through the square’s plane “The same is true with us! you’re only seeing a cross section of what we truly are. It may look to you as though they’re going through things, but they’re really going around them in the fourth dimension. Our abilities are natural to us, evolutionary traits that are needed in our universe

“Ok…but what are you doing here. In this…universe…then.” Why would anybody want to come here? And how did they get here?

Vezari grabs Zayluna and they start speaking in a different language I couldn’t even begin to pronounce, let alone use the variety of tones they used, many of which I’m not sure a human can make. I’m not even sure I heard all of them as there were part of the conversation where they seemed to be speaking but I couldn’t here anything. When they finished Zayluna answered, “We’re here to explore and have fun.” I didn’t believe her, although it did line up with her personality.

“What are you yapper-traps doing? Ya were supposed ta get… who is this? What is he doing here?” An angry older man with something resembling a Scottish accent demands.

“I..I was just, uh… leaving, yes,… sorry to bother you!” I stutter out running away as fast as I could.