Jimmy James and the Circus of Wonders - Chapter 1

Brrrrr. 

A trumpet blasted next to my ear. ‘Fuck off.’ I mumbled, turning away from the sound. Where was a trumpet even coming from? Had I stolen a trumpet last night? No, I’m not the one playing.

A trumpet player, I guess.

But who practices in the morning? 

Where did I meet a trumpet player?

What happened last night?

Brrrrr.

I tried to open my eyes but the hit of light shut them again. My head pounded with the regrets of too many drinks. And my body ached. 

‘Please stop.’ I pleaded through a dry mouth. My voice came out as a garbled mess.

Brrrr.

The sound came again and forced me up. Apparently, three times hit my limit. 

My eyes took a moment to adjust to the light, and I sat up. My stomach revolted. I dry heaved. I tried to find a bucket around, but there was nothing except steel.

That cleared my head. 

Steel floors, steel walls, a steel toilet in the corner. 

Fuck me, I’m in prison. How did this happen? Why is there a trumpet? 

I looked around.

The bed had a crude mattress bolted to the floor. Looks likes prison. 

I stumbled over to the sink and splashed water onto my face, sucking some into my mouth. Hydration, a cigarette and another beer. My trusty hangover cure. Well, the one I borrowed from Jimmy Page. He seems like a guy who knows about hangovers.

Something was off about this place, though. It took me a moment. Then the answer hit me. No bars stood along the side of the cell. The cell had four steel walls and no windows. I couldn’t see a door anywhere either. 

Weird. I guess prisons could be fancy. 

The steel was soft and squishy. The material looked like steel, metallic and hard, but when you pressed into it, the material felt like a cushion, compressing under your fingers and toes. It was soft, like a mattress. 

‘Hello.’ I called out. Calling out seemed like the easiest way to get a jailer’s attention. I wondered what I had done last night to end up here. It didn’t seem like the normal drunk tank at the local jail I’d been to more than a few times. 

Last night. 

Where had I been last night?

Smokey’s.

I was at Smokey’s playing; Beatles celebration night. I opened with Twist and Shout. The crowd was older but enthusiastic. They sang along to Hey Jude and Let It Be. But didn’t recognize some of the more obscure Beatles songs. No one recognized my favorite Beatles song when I played it; Nowhere Man. 

It was the first Beatles song to have no reference to relationships. Nowhere Man was all about the existential concerns of living. Lennon wrote it after taking LSD and said he sang for the people who had shut themselves off from life. 

Nowhere Man contained so much wisdom and power, but no one remembers that one. They only remember the big pop hits.

I even skipped a verse after getting the eyes from Bob behind the bar. ‘Keep them here, singing, drinking and paying.’ The familiar words from the greasy old barkeep were audible in my mind.

So I was at Smokey’s last night. I was playing Beatles songs. I had a drink or two. 

I had no memory of anything else.

Had someone spiked my drink? Had one or two turned into a few more?

I’m embarrassed it took me so long to notice, or mention, that I was in a tiny robe. My traditional jeans and plaid shirt stage combo had disappeared, and the tiny, blue robe did not account for gravity’s pull. My underwear was absent from its duties. And my sagging-more-than-I-would-hope family jewels ducked below the hem. 

I was hanging low in a cushion-y steel box.

My head still pounded, so I gave up on trying to solve the mystery for a moment. 

I had had enough rough nights to know that sometimes the answers come in time. There’s a great proverb in there somewhere. I laid back down on the soft, squishy steel floor and closed my eyes.

Brrrrrr.

The trumpet came back.

‘Fuck off.’ The words came out clearly this time. They must have given me a decent amount of time to sleep. 

Brrrrr.

I guess they won’t stop. I opened my eyes and sat up on the floor, yawning as I did. At least the sleep had taken some of the edge off the hangover. My mind was only the normal amount of waking-up-blah. 

‘Oh, fuck.’ I shouted. One of the walls of the box was gone. And standing there was a tiny soldier dressed in a blue outfit. ‘Sorry.’ I said. 

The soldier stood four feet tall. I’d never seen a soldier that small. The outfit was unlike anything I had ever seen before. A bulbous helmet shaped like a football, or Stewie Griffin’s head, sat on the top of a wide set of armor shaped like an hourglass. The whole getup had the look of a poorly made blue snowman.

I resisted the urge to laugh. It wouldn’t help me in this situation. 

Did I get kidnapped by a child? The size of the person and the ridiculousness of the outfit screamed child. But what sort of child has a compound like this? What countries are blue? 

‘Brrrrrr.’ The trumpet blast came from the tiny figure.

I covered my ears. The noise was far too loud for the small room.

‘Brrrr.’ The volume lowered as they blasted again. 

The blue-clad figure stared at me. They seemed to wait for an answer. I shrugged and held up my hands in the universal I-have-no-idea-what’s-going-on look. ‘Sorry man, I don’t speak trumpet.’

The blue figure pointed at me with a strange gloved hand that had two large fingers instead of a normal mitten with a thumb and fingers. Blue pointed to me and then towards the bed. 

‘Okay.’ I agreed and lowered myself onto the mattress. In police situations, it’s always better to go with whatever they point at. A series of poor decisions on my last trip to Amsterdam had reinforced that lesson. 

I laid back on the bed and craned my neck to look at the blue shape. Blue had a cop vibe. Commanding, annoying, law-enforcing. Little too much ego.

Blue looked off to the side. And gave a hand signal. 

Then the bed grabbed me.

Straps came from nowhere and wrapped around my arms, legs and chest, forcing me back into the foam. 

They gripped hard against me, and within seconds, they immobilized me. 

The only thing I could do was adjust my head from side to side. 

Until a strap came over my forehead and clamped that too. 

‘Help.’ I screamed out. I couldn’t move. 

A whirring sound started, and then a pop from beneath the mattress. 

Then something hit me.

A sting into the back of my neck, right onto the spine.

‘Fuck!’ I exclaimed in pain. A needle slid between my vertebrae and pinching my neck.

Then it was over.

The needle slid out, and a wet patch pressed against the entry point. It was warm, and the pain seemed to melt away into the moisture. And then that disappeared too, leaving only a wet spot on my skin.

The straps slid off my body and back into the bed.

I couldn’t move for a moment. The brief terror and pain of the experience froze me in place before I jumped up and out of the bed before it could grab me again.

It had all happened in an instant.

I looked at the bed. The bed had no seams. No sign of a strap creeping out. The bed looked normal.

I huddled against the far wall, leaning against the squishy steel, and rubbed the back of my neck. I felt a slight bump and pushed my fingers against it. It was a lump and I could feel something in it. It was round and sitting on top of my bone. They had inserted something into me. ‘What the fudge was that?’ I shouted at the tiny blue soldier. 

My mind whirred with possibilities. Tracking chip? Angry husband punishing me for a one-night stand? Government mind control chip? Some sort of chip that will make me hungry for brains? A zombie chip?

Brrrrr. 

The trumpet blast came again. This time I knew it was from the tiny police officer. Impressive diaphragm on that guy. I would kill to sing that loud. After a second, a tinny voice sprouted from inside of my skull. ‘Can you understand me?’

My eyes shot wide open. ‘What the fuck?!’ I screamed. Was I going crazy? I heard the voice inside of my head!

Brrrrr. The trumpet blasted. Then a few seconds later, ‘confirmed as yes. Universal translator is functional.’

Universal translator?

Like Google, but in my head.

What the heck was the government doing testing this technology on me? And I’d never heard the trumpet language before. Although, anything outside of English is foggy for me, anyway. It wasn’t French, but maybe something Middle Eastern or African. 

Brrrrrr. A second passed. ‘Prisoner will go to the bed.’

I looked over at the bed. ‘No way.’ I shouted towards the wall. 

Brrrrrr. ‘Prisoner will go to the bed.’

‘No.’ 

No answer came from the other side of the wall. I leaned back against the squishy steel and took a breath. What was going on? 

I didn’t get long to think.

A dart shot out from the wall.

And I went to sleep.

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