The Woman Who Came from Smoke Part 1

Azrael’s Circus of the Bizarre

The Woman Who Came from Smoke

Draft 3

By: Chase L. Currie

“I fucking hate the damn cold,” Charon Lewis growled through his rough voice deepen by the cigar hanging from his decrepit lips. Charon skin hanging on to his bones like a pair of pants being held to your legs by sweat. And the unseen heat seems to pull the very life from his flesh and dark brown eyes causing him to look sickly, almost dying. Death seems to be afraid to touch him thought, afraid he would catch whatever sickness the old man has, which might just be immortality. “Fucking snow, I swear it was made by the Devil, herself, she is a cold-hearted bitch anyways.”

                Lucille Nightleaf giggled at the old man in the black bowler hat and the overused leather trench coat from the war at her side. He pulled the coat in closer as Lucille did the same with her. She couldn’t help but wonder what people thought as they walked by the two of them standing in the alleyway at night. A dying old man and a young sixteen-year-old girl, in a bright red coat and short black and blue hair. Her eyes were wide and big but as dark as the man beside her.

                She jumped up and down a little from the cold and said, “I told ya, it was going to be cold.”

                “Not this bloody cold,” Charon Irish accent bleed out a little. “’Bout to freeze my god damn balls off.”

                Lucille giggles a little more to herself. She didn’t mind the cold too much, in fact, she secretly loved it. She grew up in the deep south of Georgia and had the accent to boot. However, it was starting to be pushed out by her new friends and the English man named Azrael. He didn’t like the accent too much and implore her to hide it when the shows started.

                He was after all the master of his circus, the great Azrael’s Circus of the Bizarre and her new home. So she did her best to do as he asked. She tries to hide her southern draw as much as possible.

                She smiled down at the snow trying her best to fight against the idea of packing a ball together and tossing it at Charon. Who would curse and yell at her for getting his coat dirty. She was sure the angering old man would be worth it, but how to make the snowball without him notice was the real question.

                “This dame better be worth it,” Charon said again to himself.

                Lucille didn’t pay him any attention and wanted to know what the snow tasted like. She couldn’t remember ever seeing snow before in her life. All she could recall was long summer days too hot to do anything other than lay in bed cursing the sun for being awake and begging her body to sweat no more. The only break from the endless beating of the summer heat was the hours spent in the swimming hole in the woods behind her family’s mansion.

                Snow, on the other hand, was cold and white. A real white. A white she had never really seen before but only hear about. Whiter then any person she every meet or seen. It an alluring color begging her to touch it to make imperfect.

                “Have you ever ate snow?” Lucille childishly asked the tall, thin man. “Does it taste like ice cream?”

                “It tastes cold, that is it,” Charon grunted. “Eat some and find out.” He thought it was a little odd she didn’t know what snow tasted like. Georgia got snow, maybe not like the North but she had to see it before.

                “Like just pick it right off the ground?”

                “Or hold your tongue out,” Charon showed her with an ugly grin and a big fat tongue. He caught a few snowflakes as they screamed to run away from him. They pray for the wind to blow so they could rejoin their family on the ground but their lives were cut too short by the mean old man.

And Lucille joins in on the Holocaust.

                Charon laughed hard and deep when Lucille shook from the cold touch of the snow. She held her head out, making her neck long to caught more snowflakes. “It is the best,” she tried to say with her mouth open. Charon laughed louder.

                “Lucille,” Charon coldly said, “here comes Stanley.”

                Lucille closed her mouth as the black cat jumped into her arms. If it weren’t for the lights of the city that never sleep and the bright green eyes, one would never see the cat coming. The cat rested its paws on her shoulder like a person about to give her a hug, but instead, he looked her dead in the eyes.

                A moment later Lucille said, “The lady is in there, for sure.”

                “How sure?” Charon asked staring right at the cat.

                “Very sure, he says,” Lucille smiled back at Charon.

                “Then let’s go meet this dame, clown.” Charon started across the street, and Lucille followed quickly behind him with Stanley resting in her arms. She stays on the heels of the Charon as they walked up to the doorman in the alleyway.

The large black man held his hand out and cocked his head a little. “Can’t come in, private party.”

Charon looked back at Lucille and said, “This has to be the only bloody Speakeasy in New York with a doorman out in the open.”

               Lucille shrugged. She wouldn’t know any different, this is the first time she ever been to New York or a city this big before. To her, the city was an endless maze of a giant looking down on everyone, and everyone was racing to get to somewhere, even if they were going nowhere. The city felt as if had been on the land for all eternity and she couldn’t understand why everyone was in such a hurry. None of the buildings were going anywhere. Everything was staying right where it was no matter how fast they got to it. Everyone, even the firefighters running to fire, took their time in the South. It was too hot to do otherwise. The fire wasn’t going anywhere, at best it was begging for the water to cool it off a little.