Different Strokes

Anvek pushed a few sketches away as he placed his coffee mug on the littered rickety table. Something flew past him and landed right behind him. Visibly shaken, he turned round to see a small boy with a sheepish grin pick up a Frisbee and utter something that sounded like a sorry before he disappeared into the crowd. It was carnival time in the small town of Simarita Kalance and colourful tents marked the skyline of this town. This annual attraction saw life seep into this town which lay sleepy for the rest of the year. Most of the men folk worked in the nearby industries and barely came home while the womenfolk had given up on the soil to reap any fruit. They had moved on to selling their homemade wares in the nearby towns. But a carnival was a time of joy and merriment as children ran around with cotton candies, huggable bears and numerous other soft toys while their parents bought smiles for cheap in the games and food section. The carnival was a welcome break for Anvek. It added some cheers to his otherwise sombre life as an undertaker of Simarita Kalance. The place was too dead to have dead people around and he spent his days in utter boredom. The carnival provided him with an opportunity to polish his sketching skills and earn him customers who walked away with a smile, a rarity in his usual profession.

Anvek soon spotted his first customer as a mother pulled her stubborn and plump daughter towards the isolated shack. He pulled out the pencil from his ear, pushed the point between his nails as he cleaned the dirt stuck in them and waited till his customers reached. He pulled out a toffee for the girl and his charm did wonders for the girl stopped huffing and puffing and quietly sat down on the seat. He eyed down on her double chin as the most prominent characteristic and started off pushing down quick strokes that would soon turn into something similar to the girl in front of him. She smiled on seeing the likeness to her, snatched the sketch and ran off. That’s when Anvek realized he had not seen the cute little ponytail that had sat on her. He crumpled the tenner he got and pushed it down his boot. He sipped his coffee as he waited for his next customer. In the next couple of hours he found himself busy only once as he sketched a Chinese immigrant You Lozh who worked at the quarries. You Lozh seemed tensed as he kept on glancing behind him towards the entrance as if he was waiting for someone. Anvek was in no mood to ask him to stay still, so he decided he would do a side profile. Lozh pushed in a tenner and hurried off to the limousine that had just entered the carnival grounds. The carnival lights glowed brighter as the sun descended for its siesta. A couple of boys dragged the retired colonel Krevitoz who seemed intoxicated by the fine wines flowing down Ms. Bordeauzes fountain and wanted to catch grab a sketch of his derriere so they could play “pin the donkey” on the sketch. Anvek grinned at their sadistic humour but a tenner was a tenner and the snobby colonel did deserve a good flogging. The colonel was too intoxicated to be sitting so they placed him on his stomach so Anvek could sketch the right things in right proportions. The dimming sunlight didn’t do Anvek any good for he had a terrible vision as night fell. He decided to stop at the neck and finish the rest the next day. The boys didn’t mind the missing head for they had what they wanted.

As they dragged the colonel away, a scream pierced through the entire fair and everything grinded to a halt. Little Bo had her ponytail stuck in the greased chained gears of the Ferris wheel and was crying at the top of her voice. Samuel the butcher came by and chopped off her ponytail to set her free from the agony and the pain. With a freaky accident like that, everyone decided to call it the day. Next day morning, the carnival was being packed up and Sheriff Baynes oversaw the entire operation. A carnival did lead to a lot of rubbish and Baynes had to make sure it all was cleaned up. He spotted someone far off lying in the mud near the well and figured it was one of the drunkards who were still under a hangover from last night. As he walked towards the well, his walkie talkie crackled alive. “Captain Germaine reporting… Blast at quarry. I repeat. Blast at quarry. One casualty... Immigrant... Lost his right ear… Wanted ambulance... I repeat. Urgently required ambulance… Out…” Baynes tripped over a dusty coffee mug as he turned around to rush down to the quarry.