You need all the pieces of the puzzle before you can glue and mount it into a picture frame and display it in your house. That is, if you enjoyed puzzles.
The Fixer often feels that he's living in a big giant puzzle. It's rather difficult to solve when one can't see all the pieces and they keep shifting around. For the Fixer, puzzles are not a way to pass a Sunday afternoon. It's just part of the job description.
When a piece goes missing, the Fixer needs to find it before making all the necessary repairs. Once the puzzle is in the glass frame and put up on the wall, it's forever. One little piece, missing or misplaced, can ruin the whole big picture.
The Fixer stood on the fairgrounds, after hours. It was spooky, in a retro B-grade movie kind of way. Neon painted fiberglass clowns grinning hellos at the gates. The smell of burnt corn dogs and fried donut holes. Everything-on-a-stick and puke covered dandelions in the grass.
It was one of the last carnivals with a genuine freak show and not some “snake lady” covered in green paint and cornflakes. Real freaks. People born without limbs, people two or seven feet tall, people who weigh five hundred pounds, and ladies who have beards.
The Fixer followed the yellow path of dandelions. The further he walked, the more mutant dandelions he spotted. The Fixer increased his pace. There was no sign of any patrons or carnies anywhere except for a man with white hair in a ponytail, standing in between a carousel and a helter skelter.
The operator switched the power on. The ferris wheel started spinning round and round with invisible patrons and the lights glowing.
This was clearly no ordinary carousel. This was one of the last running, antique, two-story, hand carved with the ring box still present carousel. The Fixer gazed up at the mermaids falling off the outside of the carousel, warped with old age.
The Fixer glanced down and saw a horse start to trot off the platform, the operator shooed him back with his hands.
The Fixer looked back up at the mermaids. They weren't figures weathered of old age, they were dead and decomposing. Nails had been driven through their chests to secure them to the carousel, long before Thinks and things walked through the carnival, when they were just wooden figures.
The Fixer watched the carousel spin. Swans, horses, zebras. All very much alive. All very much had half a pole extending from their backs and another half a pole from their stomachs. The Fixer assumed that these creatures did not die since the pole was carved as part of the animal, not inserted into it. The Fixer quickly noted a large space in between a pair of pink and turquoise horses.
“What's missing?” he yelled to the operator. “The lion. It escaped. Ran through the crowd, headed south. People assume it was part of the freak show act but that didn't stop them from panicking,” the carny pushed a ladder to the side of the carousel. “It was horrible, a huge stampede of people. Animal control are at the gate. There isn't enough time-I have no idea how to explain this one.” The operator took out a hammer and started to climb the steps of the ladder.
“Leave the mermaids where they are.”
“But they're dead!”
“I know, but everything needs to stay together. I'll take care of this.”The operator climbed back down and sat down next to a purple ostrich. “I don't know what happened,” the man started.
The Fixer already knew what happened. Or rather, what mostly likely happened. Thinks and things was, undoubtedly, walking nearby and perhaps some little child was enjoying his ride on the ferris wheel for the very first time. The child looked down across the park, seeing everything. Everything looks so tiny when you're up high.
The child glanced over the edge of the chair and probably saw the roller coaster, the games and the big stuffed animals to be won, the hot dog and lemonade stands, and the bumper cars. Probably squinted and saw people making cotton candy, tossing rings onto the tops of glass bottles, and riding the animals on the carousel.
The carousel is way across the park from the ferris wheel. So far away that the animals almost look real.
That doesn't matter too much now. All that matters is that Thinks and things couldn't have traveled far but first, the animals will have to be moved.
Name: n/a Location: Brainerd
Think: Living animals on a carousel.
Thing: A living carousel.
Status: fixed pending as is
Comments: Carousel moved to an undisclosed location. Operator sworn to secrecy and will continue to make repairs and general maintenance to carousel, as well as care for the animals.