Sleepytime Toothgrinder's Carnival of Errors Another stumbling effort at entertaining a tiny group of people.

30 April 2002   Dr. Toothgrinder had never quite gotten used to the sight of the Error. The vague blur of dark, dirty, shifting pink where his face should have been never stopped being unsettling. Something basic in him, something ingrained in his neurons by a million-odd years of human evolution, recoiled, as if to say “Aw, hell, that just ain’t right!” He had to stop focusing on that face, though, stop trying to predict what it was going to look like the next time the Error spoke, and think about the man’s (“Man?” he thought) hands. Those hands were, after all, clutching a staggering array of knives, clubs, and flaming torches – and the Error was not a juggling act. posted by Bigtooth | 1:24 PM 29 March 2002   Dr. Toothgrinder was having a similar realization, except for the drift part. He’d been intentionally pushing the little boat of his life into strange waters for as long as he could remember, but this was the first time that he’d thought to worry about metaphorical rocks and shoals. But with the Human Error’s . . . well, whatever that was pointed at him so threateningly, the risks of his lifestyle were suddenly quite clear. posted by Bigtooth | 9:21 AM   Once, years ago, Gillespie had grown his hair out. All of it, a long way out, two years of beard, moustache, and slightly curly (slightly red) locks piled steadily up on his head, gradually edging out his face to become his most recognizable feature. It was the kind of thing he knew was happening, but which still surprised him when, one day, he scared the shit out of himself as he walked into the bathroom. The realization upon him at the moment was somehow like that. His life, he knew, had been drifting in to less and less stable territory for months. Still, it wasn’t until he woke up from a drug-induced sleep in a circus trailer and was told by a carny and a police officer that the carnival’s tranquilizer-dispensing owner had been kidnapped by a human mistake that he really woke up to what had been happening to him. posted by Bigtooth | 9:21 AM 04 March 2002   When Gillespie awoke, Susan was standing over him with a vaguely troubled look on her face, the pet in her arms, and a police officer behind her with a different expression, one that looked more like suspicion than concern. “I’m just sleeping off a hangover,” he said, almost instinctively. “That’s what she said,” grunted the uniformed man, jostling a doughy jaw in Susan’s direction. “Was it?” He blinked a couple of times, trying to make out whether he knew who “she” was, and whether she might have been the one who slipped him the pill which he thought had sent him to a thick, dreamless sleep. “Well, after all, why wouldn’t she?” He drew his tongue across his palate, simultaneously relishing and cringing at the way they stuck together. “Where’s, um, Doctor Toothgrinder?" “Missing,” said the officer ominously. Susan handed Gillespie his pants, which he regarded with mild confusion, and turned her back, coaxing the policeman to do the same. “We think the Error kidnapped him,” she said. “The Human Error.” posted by Bigtooth | 2:30 PM 22 February 2002   Little Alex was fine. Poor ugly bastard. Dr. Toothgrinder considered that perhaps it was just as well the thing, whatever he was – he’d never really taken “cockatrice” or “basilisk” to heart, even though those were Alex’s stage names – perhaps it was just as well that he was sterile as the inside of an autoclave. The pet, the yet-to-be-named five-legged native of Madagascar, climbed onto Sleepytime’s shoulder as he entered the Errors’ resting places, an assemblage of trailers, some converted into stables, others into kennels. He opened a cage of fat white mice and took out a few, throwing them to Alex and a few of the other animals. He spoke gently to the albino Mongolian horses, and freshened their hay. Then, a twitching of his black handlebar moustache (thank you, Grecian Formula) giving a hint of rare trepidation, he stepped to the door of the last trailer. He contemplatively handled the heavy padlocks that kept his prize Error locked away – the only human featured in the Carnival. posted by Bigtooth | 10:45 AM 18 February 2002   This is not to suggest that the good doctor was opposed to the therapeutic (or recreational) use of veterinary prescription drugs. The peacefully somnolent, heavily-drooling countenance of William Gillespie attested to that. Young William was breathing, wasn’t he? Yes, he was. Toothgrinder decided that Gillespie was safe enough from his travails (and from slipping into a coma), and left to check on some of the Carnival’s Errors. He’d have Susan look in on the lad later. She had a way with wounded animals, he’d discovered. It wasn’t that she had any talent for healing – when the doctor had encouraged Susan to have a go at nursing the unnatural offspring of an iguana and a rooster back to health, she’d led it nearly to death’s door before he intervened. No, it was simply that the wounded seemed attracted to her, despite the fact that she as often as not kept them ill or, as in the aforementioned case of little Alex, made them worse. He’d be interested to see if Gillespie was drawn to Susan in the same way that so many of the Errors were. posted by Bigtooth | 4:44 PM 13 February 2002   Sleepytime didn’t have horse pills purely for therapeutic or recreational purposes. He had horses, and was trained to care for them. His love of horses had come upon him suddenly and surprisingly, like a mounting stallion, during his time in Mongolia. He had never found horses the most lovely creatures, but something about the compact, sturdy beasts that had for so long aided herdsmen and conquerors, he knew that he must have some in the Carnival. Of course, no normal horses would do. The first time he was shown a breeding pair of albinos (and it was a long time wandering across the empty Steppes before that happened, make no mistake), he stole them, barely escaping with his life. posted by Bigtooth | 10:06 AM 12 February 2002   Dr. Toothgrinder’s plan involved chemicals. Specifically, it involved Rohypnol (flunitrazepam), more pocket-picking, and a hedge maze. Gillespie objected, on the grounds that it might actually drive his sweetheart away. “Making her think I’m some kind of up-and-coming evil genius,” he said, “would not help keep her around.” The doctor quickly concocted another, more mundane plan, this one involving mainly a flowery bouquet and a more flowery appeal to her gentler emotions. When it turned out that she didn’t have gentler emotions, Dr. Toothgrinder was prompted to ask why William had been with her in the first place. This prompted the young man to begin a renewed bout of hysterical weeping, which prompted the doctor to . . . well, it’s complicated, but in the end, he did the only thing for William that he could. He gave him a horse tranquilizer to help him sleep it off. Chemicals take care of it in the end, he thought to himself. posted by Bigtooth | 1:31 PM 05 February 2002   When William Gillespie met Sleepytime Toothgrinder, his relationship was in dire straits. When Mr. Gillespie met Dr. Toothgrinder, the doctor’s pet was picking Will’s pocket. (First, the pocket.) The pet clung to a tent pole with three legs, gently pulled open the pocket with another, and reached in with its last paw, gingerly withdrawing a wallet, which it then delivered to Sleepytime. He slyly dropped it on the ground, and immediately stooped to pick it up. (The relationship.) “This yours, son?” Handing it to Gillespie, he briefly flipped it open, and commented on the photo he saw. “Your sweetheart? Pretty!” “Um, yes, I guess.” He avoided eye contact. He shuffled. He reached for the wallet, but the doctor didn’t meet him halfway. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you sure?” His often florid face grew redder with apparent indignation at the idea that either Gillespie felt halfheartedly about such a fresh young thing or that they were unhappy. They were unhappy. “In a way, I’m not,” Gillespie replied harrumphingly. “Lately things just aren’t the same.” Dr. Toothgrinder resolved at once to help the young man regain the vigor of his relationship’s first days. It was, of course, an unusual plan. posted by Bigtooth | 8:02 AM 25 January 2002   Susan, Dr. Toothgrinder’s assistant, was also unusual. He found her in England, working as a receptionist at an undistinguished museum in York. He found that she never really touched anything. While she could affect objects, use tools, consume food with no difficulty, they never came closer to her skin than a few millimeters. For a time, she had an act in the Carnival, but it was difficult to make a really sensational show out of someone not touching things. Susan vociferously objected to the idea of appearing in a show where she touched things, and Sleepytime was not so cruel that he would turn her out, so she became his assistant. posted by Bigtooth | 10:30 AM		archives links Hefner! Flaming Lips! Sign my guestbook. (Powered by SignMyGuestbook.com.)