Carnival Games

[inflation, shrinking, inanimate]

From the front seat of the van, Mr. Bravo, a greasy man in a cheap suit, glanced over his shoulder, cell phone to his ear, as the driver failed to avoid a large bump in the road. “Yeah,” he said into the phone, “we’ll be there on time.” He glanced at his watch, then out the window at the trees passing by. He covered the phone with his hand before asking the driver, “The fuck are we?”

“Fuck if I know,” grumbled the overweight driver. “GPS says we’ll be there in three hours.”

“THREE HOURS?” came the chorus of deep voices from the three athletes in the backseat. The massively muscular men–Jeff Seid, Alexey Lesukov and Roelly Winklaar–were crammed into their seats tightly, all of them dying to stretch their thick arms and legs despite the fact that the sun was setting and neither their driver nor their chaperone seemed to have any idea where the hotel was.

“Y’know, let’s all pipe down back their Mr. Musclemen,” Mr. Bravo said with great disdain. A skinny man himself, he had no idea why these athletes would choose to blow themselves up so unnecessarily large. In his opinion, it was their choice to become so bulky, and thus they should accept exactly what it meant when taking large trips in charter vans. “Who the hell are you guys all again?”

They introduced themselves individually: Jeff Seid, the aesthetically flawless man with a chiseled physique, an even more chiseled jawline and absurdly pronounced cheekbones; Alexey Lesukov, the chubby-faced behemoth whose muscles seemed like round balloons despite their density; and Roelly Winklaar, a true giant of a man whose body was so large with powerful muscle he made even the massive Alexey look small. Mr. Bravo rolled his eyes.

“I’ll call you guys ‘Small,’ ‘Large’ and ‘Double-X-L,’” Mr. Bravo said, pointing to each of them in succession.

“Could I not be ‘Extra Large” if he’s ‘Double-X’?” Alexey asked in his thick accent.

Roelly fumbled with his tanktop, tearing off the tag and producing it. “See? That’s X-X-X-L,” he confirmed. Mr. Bravo took it from him and tossed it out the window without looking at it.

“Why the fuck am I ‘Small’?” Jeff said, flexing his arms and admiring the perfectly round biceps that inflated until his shirt-sleeve was at capacity.

The van hit another bump and they heard a loud bang as everything suddenly slumped to the left. The van spun and the three athletes in the back seat braced themselves (although without much room to move, there wasn’t much they could do). Mr. Bravo shouted out as he grabbed the headrest of his seat for support before slamming forward against the dashboard.

“FUCK!” Mr. Bravo said through his hands pressed against his face. “I broke my fucking nose!”

“Sorry,” the driver said with a nonchalant shrug. “Damn tire went out. No idea what did it.”

They all got out to survey the damage. The van was mostly unharmed, although the tire was blown to bits. “This is bullshit!” Mr. Bravo said, blood streaming down his face. “You were hired for a SIMPLE job!”

The driver ignored Bravo’s tirade, trudging to the back of the van to pull out the spare tire. “Damn,” he said. “No jack.”

The three athletes all flexed their muscles and smiled. They grabbed the van and lifted it up with ease.

“Would you look at that,” Mr. Bravo said with a shrug. “Looks like all those steroids and steaks paid off.”

The athletes all ignored him (although Jeff removed his shirt and tied it around his waist, running his hands over his abs, without any reason other than to flash his flawless torso at the taunting little rat-like man.

“We may just make it on time!” Alexey announced as they all climbed back into the van. But as Roelly stepped in, they heard a screech and a pop. They were too heavy for the spare tire!

“I’m suing YOU, and your COMPANY,” Mr. Bravo said to the driver as they gathered outside once again. Then he turned. “Why don’t we–I dunno–strap the van to your backs and you can pull it like a sleigh?”

Roelly rolled his eyes. Jeff shot Mr. Bravo the middle finger. Alexey just pulled out his phone. “Not getting a signal,” he finally announced.

“Neither am I,” Mr. Bravo added. We may be stuck here for awhile…”

“The sun’s going down!” Jeff said, his face red with irritation. “I’m not staying out in the middle of nowhere in the dark! Not for some low-paying photoshoot!”

As they all stared awkwardly at each other, Mr. Bravo took a step back, realizing that his clout as the organizer of this event wasn’t going to protect him if these behemoths turned on him this far from civilization. He was saved by the sound of calliope music from somewhere beyond the trees.

“There’s lights over there,” Jeff announced as he hustled through the woods in the direction of the sound. “Think there’s people?”

“You stay with the van, and keep trying to get a signal,” Bravo ordered the driver. “You three, come with me. If I get assaulted by hillbillies I want all of you apes around me as bodyguards.”

“If we get assaulted by hillbillies, I’m giving you to them as a gift,” Jeff said, giving Bravo a shove.

The four men were shocked when they arrived at a massive clearing–and a brightly lit carnival. A shimmering ferris wheel spun forty-feet into the air. Nearby, a carousel spun fat children stuffing their faces with cotton candy and fried dough. They heard ringing bells and saw flashing lights from rows of games down a dusty midway.

“Fucking perfect!” Bravo said. “There’s TONS of people here! Somebody needs to have a phone or something.”

The four men stood, stock still, until Bravo turned to Roelly. Eye-level with the giant’s bulging shoulder, he cleared his throat: “Could you, uh… go out and flex your muscles and make someone find us a phone?”

The three athletes groaned. “Find your own damned phone,” Jeff said. “And do it quick. I need chicken and rice within the next hour. If I miss my anabolic window, little man, you are fucked…”

“And remember,” Alexey forced out through his thick accent, “if we miss the photoshoot… you owe us a LOT of money.” He rubbed his fingers together with a smile. “Contract!”

All three athletes headed in separate directions. Mr. Bravo took a deep breath and approached one of the rustic-looking carnival patrons, a barefoot man dressed in overalls.

Jeff, still shirtless, walked up and down the midway looking for some pretty women. Most of the carnival attendees seemed to be farm-folk, dressed in plaid and flannels. The men varied between thin and plump, while the women all tended toward heavyset bodytypes, men of them wearing swishy homemade dresses as they clomped around in flip-flops. These thick women all turned their heads at Jeff, who smiled back politely but did his best to avoid eye contact.

One elderly woman, without a word, reached out and stroked his muscular arm. From sheer reflex he curled his fist, making his arm rock-hard, but then he pulled away. That kind of attention could get out of control at a place like this.

Jeff’s eye caught a thin young woman in a sundress standing near one of the games. All the carnival games were all staffed by men in clown costumes, a threatening sight despite the fact that the simple folk around him seemed unphased by their appearances. Jeff approached the woman. She shyly averted her eyes as he approached, swiping her hair behind one ear.

The game she was playing involved water guns and plastic dummies. Each of the dummies, positioned about fifteen feet back in the game’s stall, was a cartoonish character–a mermaid, a policeman, an old lady with a mound of blue hair–with their mouths open wide. The object was to spray the water into the dummy’s mouth, filling up a balloon at the dummy’s feet until it burst.

“Easy enough,” Jeff said, glancing over at the young woman with a wink. “How much to play?” he asked.

“For you?” said the Clown, who had a massive green wig and a spot painted over his eye like a dalmatian. “Free for your first try. Think you can win the big prize?” He thumbed at a row of pink teddy bears hanging overhead.

“You’re gonna regret giving this to me for free,” Jeff replied. He grabbed a water gun and took aim at a dummy–which, coincidentally, was a shirtless muscleman flexing his arms.

“Think you can fill up that dummy’s mouth with water?” the clown said with a haunting giggle.

“Piece of cake,” Jeff said. He glanced over at the young woman just as the bell rang. He flexed his arm at her, but she was too focused on the game, filling up the fireman dummy’s mouth with water. Jeff immediately turned toward his dummy–damn, did it kind of look like him?--and blasted it with water.

Jeff was bullseyeing the hole with his stream, but the balloon below his dummy wasn’t inflating. He grit his teeth and glanced over at the other bumpkins playing the game. Their balloons were filling normally. A cowboy next to Jeff cheered as his balloon burst and he won the game.

“The fuck?” Jeff said, grabbing his stomach as he burped loudly. “My balloon didn’t fill!” He groaned as he burped again, some water spiling from his mouth.

“You sure about that?” the clown said, poking Jeff’s stomach, which was still an eight-pack but seemed distended like a turtle shell.

“I’m going again,” Jeff said.

“Twenty dollars,” the clown demanded, a gloved hand extended toward him.

“Twenty… fucking twenty dollars?” Jeff, frustrated, burped loudly again, but grabbed his gun and aimed. “If the balloon doesn’t fill this time, I’ll know it’s rigged.”

The clown nonchalantly shrugged as the game began again. Jeff blasted the muscleman dummy right in the mouth but the balloon didn’t inflate one bit. “Fuck!” he said, burping loudly again. He was feeling really full, like he’d just guzzled a gallon of protein shake, but he was too focused on his frustration to pay it any mind. “This is bullshit!” he shouted as a kid with a mullet won the prize.

“How about this,” the clown offered. “You try again, change dummies, and if you STILL can’t inflate the balloon, I’ll give you all your money back.”

“You’re on!” Jeff cried, stepping sideways as a woman with cats-eye glasses took his spot at the muscleman dummy. God, he felt bloated! Probably because he hadn’t eaten. He looked down to see that his normally chiseled abs seemed covered with a layer of softness. “Jesus, look at me,” he remarked. “I’m so ripped, I SMELL fried food and I put on ten pounds.” He looked over toward the pretty woman he was focused on wooing, but she was long gone. He didn’t care; he wanted to beat this game–to beat the damned clown–once and for all.

The bell rang and Jeff started blasting his dummy–a chef with a handlebar moustache–right in the mouth. The balloon inflated, as it should have, and finally popped. Jeff won!

“Fuck, I–” He was about to cry, “Won!” but something felt wrong. The woman in glasses was still firing water at the muscleman dummy even after the bell had rung. Jeff couldn’t explain it, but he felt more and more full as the spray hit the dummy. Took a step and heard his jeans rip, then looked down to see that his legs and buttocks had bloated up tremendously. His gut was swelling out like a balloon, so far that he couldn’t see his feet anymore. “Stop!” he said, although he gurgled like he’d been guzzling water.

The clown clapped his hands while the woman cackled with delight as she continued filling the dummy with water. Jeff couldn’t explain it, but he knew that the pressure inside him, causing his flawless physique to bloat out like a balloon, was somehow related. He took a step toward her, groaning as he felt his soft thighs rubbing together. His pants completely shredded, leaving him in only tight briefs that looked like they were a single thread away from exploding.

POP! His briefs shot off and the crowd laughed. Jeff reached for the woman, but he had grown so wide and round that he was now stuck in place. His formerly muscular arm, now thick and pudgy, fell short of reaching her. Jeff just whimpered as he felt his sides rising up, pushing up his arms as his buttocks softly hit the dirt beneath.

Finally, the woman stopped. The clown handed Jeff a teddy bear, but the bloated lump of a man was too swollen to reach for hit. His fingers clumsily fluttered at the air as it bounced down his turgid body. The woman grabbed the bear and ran away.

Jeff was blown away. This couldn’t be possible! Every time he opened his mouth he belched and water sprayed from his mouth. He was so full, like a giant water balloon. He shivered when he felt hands behind him, starting to roll him like a ball!

“Aw, it doesn’t look like you’re having any fun!” the clown said as Jeff rolled forward, his head ending up near the ground while his feet feebly fluttered above him.

“H-help…” Jeff groaned, as best he could, as he struggled with the pressure in his spherical body.

“Would THIS help?” The clown produced a spigot, then approached Jeff’s belly. His navel was a deep hole, the only feature on his otherwise smooth body. Before Jeff could respond, the clown jabbed the spigot in.

Jeff felt no pain; rather, he felt absolute relief as water sprayed out the end of the spigot like an open fire hydrant. His terror relieved as he watched his body starting to deflate as the water within him blasted out. Carnival-goers danced in the spray like they were running through a sprinkler. Jeff didn’t care, as long as he ended up normal again!

It wasn’t long until he had arms and legs again–then he looked like a bodybuilder once more, just bloated and soft. He stood up, watching the water pour from the strange spigot on his abdomen. When he was back to normal, he reached up, trying to pull it out, but the water continued to flow.

“Hey, turn it off!” Jeff said, one hand on the spigot with the other covering his junk so the hillbillies couldn’t see.

“Not yet!” said the clown. Jeff tried to turn the spigot to no avail; the flow continued, and suddenly Jeff realized he was now staring UP at the crowd around him!

“Hey!” he said, his voice high-pitched as the puddle beneath him covered his toes, then became ankle deep as his size literally drained away. “Hey, stop it!”

The carnival-goers laughed and poked at him. The cowboy returned to nudge Jeff with his prize teddy bear, knocking the tiny bodybuilder off his feet.

The spigot finally came free when Jeff found himself small enough to be squashed under the dirty feet of the toothless unwashed folk looming over him. As their filthy hands poked at him and threatened to pluck him off the ground, the clown finally shoved them aside, reached down to snatch him up in his soft gloved hand.

Jeff felt the clown’s silky fingers squeezing him just tightly enough so he wouldn’t move. His head was the only thing exposed from the fist. “Where are you taking me?” he asked, but the clown ignored him. He approached a shelf full of small action figures–army men, cowboys, a few wrestlers in speedos. Jeff shrieked as the clown plopped him next to the toy prizes. He couldn’t believe he was the same size as these little dolls!

“One last thing,” said the clown, producing an atomizer and giving Jeff a squirt. The little bodybuilder cried out as the liquid coated his body, making his skin feel warm and tingly. He stared down in shock when he realized his groin was suddenly as smooth as an action figure’s. He turned to run for the edge of the shelf, but his body was moving so slowly. A few steps away, he froze in place.

“Okay now, step right up!” the clown announced as the crowd cheered. “Whoever wins five times in a row can take this DELIGHTFUL COCKY BODYBUILDER home as a prize!”

Jeff, frozen in place but still able to see and hear, was horrified but could do nothing about it.

*

Roelly walked along the midway, gently amused by the fairgoers milling around eating hot-dogs and slushies, until he arrived at a “Test Your Strength!” game. A clown with a purple wig held a large wooden mallet, pointing it at onlookers and taunting them to, “...step right up!” The clown chomped on a cigar and leaned on the mallet as a heavyset man in a backwards cap and flannel shirt approached. He grabbed the mallet, adjusted his cap, and swung the mallet down on the target. A weight rocketed up, lighting up signs as it rose, finally ending on, “Strong fella!” It was several feet below the bell at the top, however.

“Aw, too bad, so sad!” the clown taunted as he exhaled a large cloud of cigar smoke in the heavy man’s direction. A teenager in oversized pants and shoes approached and gave it a shot. He spit on his hands, grabbed the mallet, and swung it in a wild arc. The weight rose to, “Not bad!” but the crowd sighed as the teen walked away.

“What about this guy?” a woman shouted, pointing at Roelly, who stood out amongst the crowd, both due to his sleek attire and his massive size.

“Look at those muscles! He looks like he swallowed forty bowling balls!” shouted the teen who had just taken a swing.

Roelly shyly waved away the attention, but the clown walked up. “How about this, big man,” the clown said, ashing his cigar on Roelly’s shoe. “You ring the bell, I’ll eat this cigar.”

The dutch bodybuilder rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to eat your cigar,” he said.

“No, let’s shake on it,” the clown said, extending a gloved hand. “I’m a clown of my word!”

Roelly chuckled and shook. The clown play-acted crumpling under Roelly’s grip. “Folks, those muscles aren't just for show! Big guy almost broke every bone in my arm! Doesn’t even know his own strength!”

Roelly sighed and took the mallet. He rolled up his sleeves, wound back, and slammed it down. The weight only rose a few feet, as high as the, “Eat your spinach!” sign.

The crowd laughed at the enormous man’s pitiful showing. Roelly looked at the mallet, then at the target, then at the two men who had tried before. He grabbed it again, grunted loudly, and swung as hard as he could. The weight went even shorter this time, up to, “Little feller!” The crowd erupted in riotous laughter.

“This is rigged!” Roelly said as the clown approached him, poking his enormous biceps.

“I don’t know, they feel kinda soft!” the clown said, chuckling.

“This hammer isn’t real, bro,” Roelly said, handing the mallet back. “This was a setup to make me look bad.”

“I don’t know, let’s take a look,” the clown said, twirling the mallet in his hands. With blinding speed, he wound back and swung down, hitting Roelly right on the head. The hulking man was shocked when the impact didn’t cause any pain. In reality, he just felt a strange tingling in his body as he seemed to sink down. He looked down, expecting to have been pressed into the ground beneath him, but his feet were still above land. However, everyone around him seemed several feet taller!

The clown bent at the waist and looked down at Roelly, who had been squashed down to half height! Roelly hadn’t lost an ounce of his mass, however. It had all compressed down, making him a cartoonishly wide dwarf stuffed with massive muscles, limbs so thick he could barely move them. Roelly waddled back and forth on his awkwardly massive legs, his arms sticking out of his torso at an angle because his massive lats held them up. “Hey, shrimpy, you must be THIS tall to enjoy this attraction!” the clown taunted, holding a hand two inches above Roelly head.

The now-three-feet-tall bodybuilder turned to run away, but found that he could barely move unless he tilted his body back and forth, shifting the weight to each of his nearly inflexible legs. He wiggled his stumpy, musclebound arms in a panic as he only managed to move a few feet away. He didn’t make it very far before the crowd surrounded him. He was at eye level with their groins, but they all poked him and teased him for his suddenly humiliating size and shape.

“What’s’a matter?” the clown said, feigning concern. “You not having any fun anymore, Hulk?” He lifted the mallet again and swung it down, this time squashing Roelly into a flat disc on the ground.

Roelly was shocked–he could still see (only straight up) and feel, but he couldn’t move. In fact, he felt rather pleasant, his whole body warm and tingling, but he couldn’t move a muscle.

The clown yanked him up from the ground and held him up, turning him around to show that he was, in fact, now a flat disc. Roelly’s eyes were visible on the disc, but the rest of his face had gotten squashed into his pecs. He couldn’t tell where the rest of his body was; everything just felt mushed together.

“Aw, he’s not having much fun, is he folks,” the clown taunted. “C’mon, big man… why don’t you…” He squashed the disc together, then reshaped it all with his hands. “...have a ball!” He had molded Roelly into a perfect sphere. The bodybuilder’s eyes were visible, but the rest of him had been mashed together so much that the individual parts were unrecognizable, even to Roelly.

The clown cackled as he spun Roelly on his finger. The bodybuilder was helpless, and thought he might puke from the spinning (although he couldn’t quite locate his mouth or his stomach, so the possibility of it actually happening seemed low).

Roelly became completely disoriented as the clown walked with him, continuing to spin him, until finally he plopped the ball down on a shelf. Roelly blinked and tried to focus. Next to him was an action figure that looked exactly like Jeff Seid. “Up on the prize shelf you go,” the clown said, giving Roelly a gentle pat before walking away, leaving him to be won by someone else at the carnival.

*

Alexey considered splurging on a caramel apple, but with the photoshoot in the morning, he knew he had to keep his carbs low, and a cheat meal just wasn’t a possibility. “Good lord, you’re big as a buffalo!” said a woman pushing a stroller. Alexey looked behind him, not sure she was talking to him at first.

“Thank you,” he said shyly, bowing his head.

“You must lift weights like ten hours a day!” The woman was both chomping on gum and smoking a cigarette at the same time, her heavy mascara starting to run. She had wild blonde hair.

“No, I just like to eat a lot,” Alexey said, patting his rock-hard stomach.

The woman shook her head and walked away, eyes wide.

“Geez, how much does a guy like you weigh?” asked a bald man with only three visible teeth behind his flapping lips.

“Not as much as you might think,” Alexey said, preferring to be coy, although he hated the sudden influx of attention he was getting. Maybe he needed to reconnect with the other guys, for safety in numbers, or find Bravo again to learn what the status of their ride out of this strange carnival was.

“I bet that guy could guess it!” the bald man said, pointing down the midway to a booth where a clown with straight silver hair and a hat shaped like a daisy was guessing people’s weights.

Alexey just shrugged his big shoulders. “Maybe, but…”

“Maybe nothing! He can guess EVERYBODY’S weights!” the bald man said. Without anything else to occupy him at that moment, Alexey approached the booth.

A pregnant woman with enormous breasts barely contained by her leather top stumbled up to the dais, where the clown walked around her, plucked a hair from her head, then comically extended a tape measure to establish her body’s width. The woman held her hands over her mouth as she giggled, unable to contain her excitement.

“One-hundred-and-twelve-pounds!” the clown announced.

“Oh my gosh HE’S RIGHT!” the woman said, jumping up and down. Somehow, her bouncing breasts stayed within her shirt.

“...and the baby weighs 6.1 ounces,” the clown added with a wink.

“Oh my goodness, HOW DID HE KNOW I WAS PREGNANT?” the woman said, shrieking as she tittered off stage, nearly falling out of her high heels.

“Hey! Guess this big guy’s weight!” the bald man yelled, pointing at Alexey. The bodybuilder, whose XXXL shirt looked skin tight on his protruding pec shelf and absurdly wide back, immediately attracted attention. There was no getting out of this for the exceptionally muscled man.

As Alexey climbed up on the dais, the clown suddenly dropped to a squat. “Careful!” he said. “Feels like you’re exceeding the weight limit on my stage! She’s only made of wood and nails, y’know!”

Alexey smiled, shrugging. “I can get down now if you please,” he said, but the clown held up a hand.

“Not before I judge your weight, big fella!”

“Three hundred pounds!” shouted a man with a lip packed with tobacco.

“Now, now,” the clown said, “let the professional take a guess!”

He walked around Alexey, leaned in to take a sniff, then held a protractor up against Alexey’s biceps. Alexey flexed his arm for the crowd’s amusement; as expected, they went wild, cheering and hollering about how large his muscles were.

“Well, let me see here,” the clown said, pulling a giant calculator out of a bag stuffed with clown accessories. He punched a few buttons, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he dramatically entered some bizarre calculations.

“Even within five pounds is impressive,” Alexey said, allowing the clown some wiggle room.

“I have the answer!” the clown announced dramatically. He walked to the front of the stage, in front of Alexey. “This man is all fluff! There’s no substance here!”

Alexey raised an eyebrow, unsure if he completely understood the man’s English. “Excuse me? Could you say that again–”

“He weighs ZERO POUNDS!” the clown announced. The crowd applauded as if he had been correct. Alexey looked around, unsure what sort of joke was failing in translation.

“Nice try, but I weigh–” Alexey started, but as he took a step forward, he gasped as he lifted right off the ground! He hovered in midair as he floated gently across the stage. Just as he was about to touch down, the clown ran in front of him and gently bopped him, sending him back in the other direction!

When Alexey finally touched down, he froze, afraid to move. His brain was still processing what was going on. The clown approached him, and while Alexey’s instinct was to flee, he was unsure what would happen if he lost touch with the ground again. Not wanting to end up airborne, he crouched low.

“That’s right, folks, this big beast of a man is FULL of hot air!” The clown grabbed Alexey by his thick shoulders and hoisted him up overhead. The powerfully built man was shocked–he had NEVER been lifted up like this, and the fact that he was unable to break free from the man’s grasp was mind blowing. He flailed his arms, kicked his legs, but he was unable to generate any force to resist. If what the clown was saying was true–if Alexey REALLY weighed nothing–then he would have no strength, either!

Alexey cried out as the clown tossed him straight up. He ascended slowly, flipping head over heels as he rose, then hung in midair for an impossibly long time before slowly drifting back down, knocked off course by a gentle breeze. He could see the maniacal clown looking gleefully up at him, as well as the crowd mocking his helplessness, but he could do nothing to fight escape them.

Just as he landed in the clown’s hands, Alexey felt the clown grab something on his back. He twisted Alexey’s lower back hard. Something sprang loose.

“Oh, this explains it, folks!” the clown announced. “He’s not a man at all! He’s an inflatable! Full of hot air, as it seems.” He set Alexey back on the ground.

The bodybuilder wobbled unsteadily before making a break from it. Something from his back was making a loud hissing. He took a few steps, overwhelmed by a growing weakness, but as he reached to feel his lower back, he felt some hard stem.

His fingers traced it for a moment as his mind puzzled it out: it felt like a valve, like on a bike tire. Alexey suddenly pieced together what was happening, as impossible as it was, and started to run, but his legs were flimsy, wobbling more with each step. His body was drooping, sagging toward the ground as more air escaped from the valve. He crumpled like a soda can, his face shocked as he ended up flattening out on the ground, helpless to do anything but stare up at the crowd of mountain folk gathering to cheer at his demise.

“Now now, folks, everyone out of the way,” the clown said, grrabbing the now flattened Alexey and holding him up. He was just an inflatable toy, now out of air, and the clown began to roll him up as so. The experience was maddening for Alexey, whose skin had suddenly become incredibly sensitive. As he was twisted into a tight tube, he wanted to cry out (although he no longer had a voice)--every raw nerve was scraping against every other!

Finally, the clown hoisted the tube over his shoulder as he marched across the carnival, finally setting him on a prize shelf next to a bizarre ball with blinking eyes and a muscular little action figure.

*

“Finally!” Bravo said as he hung up his cell phone. “Jesus, that was… VERY lucky.” He tried to text the athletes to get back to the van, but he got no response. He called each of their phones and they went straight to voicemail.

“You guys kidding me?” he said, stomping around the carnival. “Big fucking egotistical freaks…” He paused as a clown beckoned him toward a game.

“It’s a simple game,” the clown said, holding up a ring. “Just toss the ring, and win a prize…” He gestured toward a shelf, next to some sort of inflatable raft, a basketball, and an action figure.

“Looks like shitty prizes,” Bravo said, walking right by. “All right, if I don’t find those big bruisers in the next fifteen minutes, I’m leaving without them…”