The Warple Wurcus of Thussleberry Circus

I couldn’t believe my destiny. The colours, the motion, the sentiment. I’m older now, nearing death; a great time to write a memoir. But this is no ordinary memoir, for I was the first Warple-Wurcus. I was Scrimitass Sagorious.

We should start with the insignificant details — age, dates, location. Ha! What bizarre things, what relative ideas. I don’t know where or when you’re reading this, certainly in some aspect of infinity. I happen to live in a usually unusual place. My planet is called Rearth. I don’t like the name; it’s not cool enough, I’d rather Billi-Balli-Binder-Bix. I was born in 4078, just outside the cosy village of Thussleberry in the country of Ensland. I’m writing this in 4322. I don’t know how long you live; it’s a complicated business this quantum engineering of mine. Learth-428: 353 years. Rearth-789: 667 years. But perhaps you’re unlucky, perhaps you live on Earth-3498: only 80 years average life expectancy. My cosmological travels have opened my eyes to the inequality of time.

Now, I suppose it is fitting to start where all began, that is, at the beginning. There was a man, my father. There was a woman, my mother. They were good people. I knew them for 114 and 127 years respectively, one could say I was relatively lucky. They were Chocolatiers, left over from the Wonka days. My great-grandfather, Devilius Sagorious, a truly saintly man (I grant you the irony is strong), is said to have invented the now-famous ‘Pimple-Popple’. But I don’t much care for living chocolate Octopi. Even as a child I despised them — springing to life from my saliva as they did, only to cleanse my face of spots with their suckers.

Growing up around Thussleberry was magical. On Earth-3498 there were once four movies produced — one called ‘Shrek’, another entitled ‘Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium’, a third, ‘Mary Poppins’, and finally (as a turn-up for the books), they made a fictional film — based on a fictional book — about our very own Willy Wonka! There was also a TV show called ‘Lazy Town’, several books by a poet named ‘Dr. Seuss’ and three songs entitled ‘All Star’ (included on the soundtrack to Shrek), ‘Fairytales’ (by a singer called Bambee), and finally, ‘Pure Imagination’ (from the ‘Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory’ movie). Thussleberry hill felt that, was all that. The symphony of the sun’s sentiment captured by the landscape’s maternity. The purity of time expressed as if all sense were senseless, as if life were a child’s daydream, as if my heart would sing forever. My soul has always been a magpie to the magical, a squirrel to the surreal, an eagle to all that is eccentric.

I was only 32 and I had just finished school for the week. I don’t what it was — the breeze perhaps? The purty peas I had eaten for lunch? The chocolate snuffleberry in my bag? I really don’t know. But whatever it was, there stood the birth, the idea. “A CIRCUS!” I shouted. “A CIRCUS BEYOND COMPARE!”

What had appeared on the grass below the hill was a big top, the biggest big top ever. It was white and red, with a beautiful entrance sporting twisted golden poles and a red carpet. I stood outside dressed in a slim-fit streaked rainbow three-quarter length coat and a faintly duller multicoloured paisley waistcoat that had a quirky electronic function, namely, when I pressed a button located inside the pocket the rainbow colours folded in on one another as if in a DMT trip. I had also chosen to adopt a traditionally drooped gold bow tie, a Tyrian purple shirt and a pair of slim-fit trousers that had one white leg (on my left) and one black leg (on my right). I finished this remarkably beautiful outfit with a pair of scarlet red gloves (in latex) and some Nike Tajun trainers in custom emerald green with ‘Scrim’ written down the two outer sides in a graffiti-like font.

Slowly my imagination started to fade, but I tasted the colours, the fragrance of my soul. An old man walked across the field in the distance. I ran down the hill, thrilled with the prospect of my purpose. “Right where you’re standing, right in that spot, there is going to be a circus, a circus with the biggest big top ever! And they’ll be animals…animals you’ve never heard of, sights you’ve never seen!” I shouted with glee.

“Well you know, it’s inevitable that at some point in history, a person would create Fat Lava.” That old man may have just been weirder than I! I didn’t know what he meant back then, but now I do — even the most impossible things are possible as a probability, and therefore, in the infinite march of time all impossible things occur.

I went home, rambling on the way about my circus to be, “There are circuses all around, how can I make something so glorious, so superhuman?” I liked trees as a child, I’d walk over to them feeling something, indulging in an inexplicable connection. I often thought the other kids would think I were insane. I don’t how, but a thought came from a tree I was passing by, “So much is in your eyes that isn’t yet in your stomach.” Trees didn’t talk, so I knew I was being self-indulgent. Nonetheless, the thought stood.

“Mum! Mum! I’m going to create the greatest circus of all time. I saw it, just now out in the fields, I saw my circus in the future.” I remember my mother looking somewhat puzzled, I knew she didn’t believe I’d ever create such a thing. But then, no one did…everyone disregarded my ideas — family, friends, teachers. They all said, “It’s too lofty, too impossible!” I was met with questions like “How do you suppose you will get animals that people have never heard of?” Now I was a studious, precocious kid, gifted with a practical mind. I was at the beginning of understanding engineering and physics, so naturally, I shouted in retaliation: “Well…well I’ll teleport them from another world, obviously!” I didn’t imagine back then that I’d actually be the man who unlocked the secrets of cross-universal teleportation using quantum entanglement, after all, it was thought scientifically impossible in those days!