Carousel

The carnival was over and they hired a negro to clean up.  The boss stuck around for a day, but he never told the negro what to do.  The tents were gone, the rides were gone.  Besides a group of magicians, everyone was gone.  There was a carousel that spun slowly and a cornfield that surrounded some matted down grass.  A big cloud of dust floated over the road. 

The negro nudged leaves off the road, piled corn husks next to the carousel and waited.  The magicians sat around a plastic card table in a vein of shade from a pine tree.  They called him over.  There were seven of them.  They wore spotless white tuxedos.  One was short.  One was fat.  One was tall and pale and had a bow tie that spun in the wind.  The negro held his broom tight, not sure what to do.  The pale man’s bow tie wobbled like a bent bicycle wheel and stopped.  Looking awkwardly at his broom, the negro asked: “How do I know when I’m finished?”  The short one handed him half a deck of playing cards.  

“We can make your hands disappear,” he said. The backs of the cards were yellow and blue.  Before the negro could turn the cards over, the little one took the cards and shuffled them back into the deck.  

The next morning, the magicians sat on the horses, slowly rising and falling between the brightly painted bars of the carousel.  The fat one spoke rapidly into the open air.  The short one did cartwheels.  Mist was lining the edge of the cornfield.

They called the negro over again.  The pale faced magician with the spinning bow tie looked up from an upside down newspaper and nodded.  He was sitting on the black horse that flailed impossibly, standing on one leg.  The negro stood a moment next to the rumbling structure, watching the beasts and men blur together.  Then the bow tie slowed and stopped.  “When do you all leave?” the negro asked.  The little one wobbled over to him and pulled out a pack of cards.  

“Is this your card?" he asked. 

“You took the cards back.” 
"Is this your card?" 
"No sir."
Stuffing the cards back into his breast pocket, the little one held out an empty hand and squinted at the negro.  

“Pick a card, any card,” he demanded.   
The pale man passed by as the negro set his broom down. “Go on,” the pale man said, "choose." The negro reached and watched his hand pass through the solid air. 

That night he made a bed for himself by the cornfield. Later, he woke to a blue silence coming off the grass. The carousel was stopped. A green door sat in the middle with a single light above it.  The negro picked up his broom and approached the structure.  The lights came on and the carousel started spinning again.  He stood for a moment as the terrible black horse whined into the air.  "What do I have to do to get out of here?” he asked no one in particular.

Someone said: “Just walk through that green door.”  He stood a moment just outside the circle of light.  And with a pass, they went and painted the green door brown.