Bobos Electric Circus

“Step right up, ladies and gentlemen!” The air was filled with the enticing aroma of popcorn and cotton candy as the vibrant, colorful tents of the traveling circus stood tall in yet another small town. The sound of laughter and excitement echoed through the air, drawing curious onlookers from far and wide.

“Move it, Bozo,” a teen said and shoved a clown out of his way.

“Why, I out to punch your lights out,” the clown threatened the teen and started to lurch after him, but another, taller clown grabbed his shoulders to stop him.

“It’s not worth it, Jim. He’s just some punk kid,” the taller clown said.

“Thanks, Stan. And call me Jimbo when we’re working,” Jimbo said and smiled.

“Then call me Stanly,” Stan said.

“But you’re a lion tamer dressed as a clown. I’m just a clown, my names all I got going for me,” Jimbo said. Stanly shrugged.

A very tall man in circus clothing and clown make up walked through the crowd on stilts.

“Do you think his head could touch the clouds?” A small boy asked his mother while tugging on her dress.

“I don’t know, sweetie, but that’s a good question” the mother responded.

With a loud, booming voice being shouted through a mega phone, the man on stilts shouted, "Step right up! We've got tickets on sale. Get them while they’re hot! These tickets are a hot ticket item. Get them as a gift, a joke, for yourself, for a friend. Get them for a horses rear end. Get them for a loved one, a hated one, or one you’re indifferent too. Get them while sick and on the mend. Get them while you’re well and can easily bend. Don’t pretend like you don’t want tickets to the circus. Everybody loves the circus. Get them at the ticket booth now. Don't go off the rails because you missed your chance to get yourself a ticket to this great show! Hurry, hurry, buy your tickets! Bobos circus, the best in town!"

“I hate Bobos circus,” Jimbo growled.

“I love Bobos circus,” Stanly said.

“Why? They pay us peanuts and treat us like clowns,” Jimbo said.

“But Jimbo, we are clowns,” Stanly gently reminded him.

“Yah, only for a living. Underneath all this make-up, we’re still humans,” Jimbo said and patted Stanly on the back. Stanly squinted his eyes, thinking hard about what Jimbo had said. They walked into the tent together to get ready for their performance.

“Everyone, don’t forget your tickets, you don’t want to miss this,” the man on the stilts blasted through his megaphone one last time and made another cute rhyme.

His words echoed through the air and he had captivated the audience on the boardwalk.

“I’m really good at this,” the man on stilts told himself. He was unaware that whispering through the speakers on the tent were subliminal messages hypnotizing people into buying the tickets, which allowed him to think the hypnotized audience was all his doing.

The man on stilts was sure he was the one who mesmerized everybody into buying the tickets, he wasn’t good at anything else aside from balancing, this had to be his secret talent.

“Hey Jimbo, Stanly, take a look at this crowd! I convinced them all to buy tickets!”

“That’s great, Bob! You should be real proud of yourself,” Stanly said.

“Yah, real great Bob!” Jimbo said and gave Bob a thumbs up.

“He does know the crowds being hypnotized by the loudspeakers, right?” Jimbo asked Stanly.

“Should we tell him?” Stanley asked innocently.

“Well, naw. Look at him, he’s a no talent, washed up freakishly tall bio hazard who can’t even shower on his own. Telling him he was no good at his job would break him,” Jimbo said.

“Well, that’s very kind of you, Jimbo,” Stanly said and patted Jimbo on the back.

“Kind? I’m not keeping this secret to be kind. Bobs a freaking cryer. I just don’t want to listen to him cry all day. Do you?” Jimbo asked.

Stanly just looked at Jimbo with a scowl and walked away.

“Oh come on. Stanly, where you going Stanly. I was kidding. Come on Stanly,” Jimbo said and chased after Stanly, who was now buying some Rocky Road ice cream from the ice cream stand.

The people down below looked like they were so mesmerized by the tall man's presence and bellowing voice, his voice, as they eagerly lined up to purchase their tickets. This made Bob proud.

But little did the audience know, their lives were about to take a fantastical turn.

As evening came, the crowd gathered inside the grand, mystical old tent that smelled of musk and elderberries. The lights dimmed, and the show began. One by one, the performers took the stage, revealing their extraordinary abilities. Acrobats defied gravity, contorting their bodies in impossible ways. Fire-eaters breathed flames that danced effortlessly in the night sky. Illusionists conjured visions that left the audience in awe. Even Bob was there, walking around on his stilts and squirting everyone with a fake plastic flower on his shirt.

And of course, after all of that, Jimbo and Stanly took the stage and performed a whole comedy routine before squiring audience members with the same water squirting flowers Bob had attached to his shirt.

But it was the ringmaster, a mysterious figure hiding in the shadows who had yet to reveal himself to the audience, who truly captivated everyone. Who was this eldritch and horrifying looking man that had just been standing in the dark shadowy corner the whole time, watching.

The lights dimmed and he popped out.

“Hello, everyone, I’m Bobo. And I am your new master. Welcome to circus life, for eternity,” Bobo said and laughed. The audience gasped.

“I’m joking, of course. But we will be doing some traveling together, of sorts,” Bobo said.

He then unleashed a magical looking purple smoke out of his hands which surrounded the audience.

As he continued to laugh, his lips curled upward and his eyes started to glow with an otherworldly intensity. With a wave of his hand, he cast a hypnotic spell over the unsuspecting crowd, locking them into their seats.

“Buckle up, boys and girls. We’re going for a ride through space and time!” Bobo said ominously.

Inside the tent, time warped and twisted. The minutes stretched into hours, hours into days, and days into years. But to the audience, it felt like mere moments had passed. They watched as the circus performers repeated the same stunts over and over in an attempt to keep them distracted, and they still marveled at the breathtaking performances time after time, losing themselves in the magic and wonder that surrounded them.

Meanwhile, outside the circus, the world changed. Seasons changed, civilizations rose and fell, and the fabric of time itself had changed. Ten thousand years slipped away, unbeknownst to those trapped within the enchanted time traveling circus.

When time had stopped moving forward, the audience was told they had arrived to where they were supposed to be.

“Why are we here? Where exactly is this? What’s going on?” Members of the audience shouted.

“Well, your in the future,” Bobo said, then continued, “you see, there’s not many people left in the future. Our populations been on decline, and a lot of us from the future have become mysteriously sterile. We invented time travel so we could bring people from the past to the future to repopulate earth,” Bobo said.

“But you did this without our consent or knowledge,” an audience member shouted.

“That’s because we knew you’d like it here,” Bobo said and took out a tranquilizer gun and shot the man, putting the man to sleep. Bobo and the other clowns then took out machine guns and pointed it at the audience.

“Anybody else unhappy about being in the future?” Bobo asked as several of the machine guns clicked.

“No,” a few mumbled and mostly everyone shook their heads in agreement, they were all ‘happy’ to be in the future.

“Alrighty, then. Everybody OFF! GET THE HELL OUT OF MY TENT,” Bobo shouted.

The audience slowly emerged from the tent, blinking in the sunlight. Confusion and disbelief filled their heads as they witnessed the new world. The landscape bore little resemblance to the town they once knew, everything looked dried up and deserted.

“I miss the ocean mommy,” a little girl said to her mother.

“Me too, honey,” the mother said.

“Let’s go back,” the girl pleaded. But the mother was now ignoring her, she was focused on seeing the new world.

In this strange and mysterious new future, the circus-goers found themselves surrounded by curious beings and unfamiliar circumstances, but found talking to the creatures helpful. They were able to answer a lot of questions about the future, and it was explained how they would survive. The circus performers even came out of the tent and apologized for the scare, and helped each one of the audience pick a new, future job.

Many of them fell into a deep depression, missing the past they came from. But they were quickly given future pills, which instantly fixed their depression. And those who missed the ocean helped gather salt water from a meteor that was traveling past Earth. They then used this water to refill the ocean.

With their new goals and jobs, they had no choice but to embrace the challenges of the future world they were now stuck in.

“Hey, mom, look at this new toy the clowns gave me,” the little girl said, again tugging on her moms dress.

“That’s very cool,” the mother said, smiling at the robotic wonder now hovering in the air. She thought if her daughter could be happy in this new, strange future, so could she!