The Circus Arrives Without Warning

Concord Pt. 1

Concord, Massachussetts, December 2013

    The Circus Arrives Without Warning. It has done so every so-often for the past century plus. It’s pure black and white canvas circus tents, the size of a small city, and inside only the people curious enough to visit can enjoy. Le Cirque Des Reves, translating in english from french as ‘The Circus of Dreams’ is a city of spectacles nonetheless. Yet not a traditional circus, as it includes several dozen tents and attractions unlike the normal three-ring setup used by the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. Each tent holds a unique attraction, many of them specific to the Circus itself. But it’s attractions and unique shows aren’t only what drives our curiosity. It’s the atmosphere, the traveling and the scattered appearances throughout the world that make us appeal to it. It’s a sense of mystery. As of one week ago today, it was in Sydney, Australia, and three weeks before that, Southern Belgium, and now it sit’s in our own town of Concord, Massachusetts.
    The book based on the traveling Cirque is set for a majority in our own city, suggesting the Circus’s origin, and the method’s of travel and operation, a mix between brilliant engineering by a Mr. Ethan Barris and mystical magic by a Ms. Celia Bowen, a daughter of Prospero the Enchanter, a fictional ‘illusionists’ from the late 1800’s. The book written by Erin Morgenstern says that the Circus opened on the night of October 13, 1886, meaning that it has been running for 127 years. The book also offers that it is driven by the truly magical efforts of Celia Bowen and her lover, Marco Alisdair, and the propitiator, Mr. Bailey Clarke. With no confirmation, contradiction or even a comment from the Circus’s management, we cannot confirm the tie in of Morgenstern’s book to Le Cirque Des Reves yet the current propitiator of the Circus has the same name of the person in the book, Mr. Bailey Clarke.
    We have tried multiple times to contact a spokesperson for the Circus and have received very limited and vague responses. Their website simply has ‘The Circus Is Coming’ floating on the screen, and the email of a woman whom we assume to be the publicist. We’ve gotten vague responses from the email with quotes such as ‘Open’s at Nightfall; Closes at Dawn’. Camera’s of all kind do not work inside the circus. iPhone’s crash, film develops blank and digital photo’s have a bright glare blocking all but edges of the corners of the photo’s. Even on the outside, the circus children whom are photographed by press from a distance are blocked out by a glare in front of each child. The only pictures that are able-developed are the ones of the tents from outside the gates. No pictures of performers, attractions or it’s inner-uniqueness has even been recorded, developed or tracked. It’s not needed. It’s mysteriousness and word of mouth reputations make it the number one attraction when it comes to town. Studies by NYU Students proclaim that cities and towns experience an influx of local business when the circus is in town, tourists staying in hotel’s, eating in restaurants and entertaining themselves during the day, when the circus has it’s gates closed. Being so, no locale questions it’s sudden appearance.
    As the circus has for it’s existence, it’s made a sudden appearance in the area. Reveurs’s, a group of Cirque followers that coordinated a cult-like existence for over a generation have already started flocking to the area. Those interested should visit quickly, as the length of the stay is unpredictable. The workers at the Circus who do speak when spoken to cannot respond to the topic. The next stop is also unpredictable, as is the next. The mystery of the circus is always the same. It both arrives and departs without warning.
Le Cirque Des Reves is set up north of the Boudreau Family Orchard in Concord until further notice. Gates open tonight at Nightfall. We’ve reached out for more details of their stay. No comment has been returned.

    The story gives me quite a laugh as I place the newspaper from the local town down on the small table in our wagon. “There’s no comment because there’s nothing to comment on.” I mutter to myself. Thinking about the comment on Ms. Morgenstern’s book also amuses me, as little do most people know that everything that happened in that book is truly non-fictional. I take a sip of my tea, a favorite drink of mine to calm the nerves, homemade Tea made by Kiko, the circus contortionist and honey from Wiseman’s Ferry, a small community North of Sydney. I restocked a cabinet with their local honey on our recent day trip there with the boy’s, as my sources say we will not by returning to that part of Australia at least, for a while. Looking at the old wooden clock hanging on wall of our wagon shows me that it’s just after three in the afternoon. The boy’s were supposed to go to a sporadic lesson with the on-site professor, who often gives lessons to the thirty-plus children who travel with the circus but had to cancel today due to one of our marvelous Snow-Leopards near giving birth this afternoon.