The thing Tomas noticed first upon entering the carnival was the barrage of smells…there’s an odor of a circus that is instantly recognizable, which hits you with almost tangible force when you walk through the gates; a melange of diesel smoke and roasted meats, popcorn and stale beer, the twisting foggy stink of humanity’s comings and goings in a place that was made with the absolute intention to strip away any thoughts or cares about the mundane outside world.
That was the feeling Tomas had when he dropped a handful of crumpled dollar bills at the turnstile, receiving a torn paper ticket which immediately went into the back pocket of his jeans…a relic which would hopefully be remembered long enough to throw it away, otherwise it would, quite literally, come out in the wash.
Tomas stopped walking, but the ebb and flow of the carnival continued unabated, adjusting and moving around him as if he were a stuck log in a flowing brook. The sideshow tent he had stopped to examine was unassuming and, to judge from the apathy of the people walking past glancing every direction but towards the tent, not exactly among the featured attractions of the fair.
It was a muggy, sticky summer night and his friends were unlikely to be found at a cheap traveling carnival that was neither glamorous enough for an instagram reel nor trashy enough for an ironic selfie, later to be shown to friends and family with a “you would NOT believe this place…” thrown in for good measure. Tomas hadn’t even particularly planned on coming to the carnival and, to be honest, could barely recall turning his toes towards the lights and smells of the field where the tents were pitched, but even a cheap and modest fair had a way of attracting strays like bees to an unattended can of soda.
The weathered flap of canvas that served as a door for the tent had a printed motif upon it, a circle with lines running through in all eight directions of the compass. A warm, subtle light was glowing within, and as he lifted the thick flap Tomas was greeted by the scent of lavender and patchouli…ducking his head to enter, he was arrested by an overwhelming feeling of being watched, or had he perhaps even heard his name called? He wheeled around but met with no eye contact from anyone walking past, and chalking it down to his own imagination backed into the tent with the effect that the flap whispered closed directly before his face. The abrupt silence was as if the people wandering the fairground outside had collectively decided to hold their breath, and there was an immediate pressure to the air that made his ears feel slightly uncomfortable, like being in an elevator rocketing skyward in a tall building.
The tent was nearly empty of furnishings, with a bare earthen floor that had been trodden by enough shoes that the grass had surrendered. The thing that took up most of the interior space was a large dark wooden wheel, situated horizontally and placed in the center of the room. The top of the wheel was divided into dozens of slim wedges or sections, each marked with a sigil embossed onto a small metal plate and with vertical protuberances at each corner near the outer rim; clearly, this was meant to spin and indeed on one side rested a horizontal willowy stick reaching just past the pegs of the wheel. There was also a dark recess in the back corner of the tent, but as soon as Tomas approached the wheel a man emerged, shrugging off the shadows like an unwelcome suggestion.
The man was not tall, although as he emerged from the shadows he seemed to be stepping down from a height. The light from the bulbs strung haphazardly along the top of the tent revealed him to be perhaps in his early fifties, of mixed but undefined ethnicity, slender but powerfully built and with short-cropped dark hair flecked with silver. His smile was evident and easy without feeling forced as he came into the light, spreading his arms wide as if he half-expected an embrace.
“Welcome, my friend, my new friend, to my tent. Make welcome in the tent of Rota, and count yourself as lucky and blessed as we together ask the Universe what it holds in store.” The man’s voice was low and smooth, not unctuous but with a practiced charm…clearly, he had been working in carnivals for some time.
The man named Rota gestured expansively towards the centerpiece of the room with one arm, inclining his head slightly. “The Wheel awaits, and if Sir is willing, Sir will soon receive.”
“Receive?” asked Tomas; quizzically, warily. He was not in the mood for wasting money on sideshow games, especially when they involved something as easily manipulated as a spun wheel.
Rota shrugged, his smile unslipping. “Or give, is it not the same? It shall be revealed. One never knows, before.”
As Tomas slipped a hand into his pocket, looking for some cash, the man held up both hands. “That is not necessary. The Wheel is not a fool’s trinket, nor the tool of a con-man seeking wealth. Should a cost be incurred, it will not be more than you are willing to pay.”
Tomas scoffed lightly. “Doesn’t sound like any carny act I’ve ever seen…I’ve seen the reports on those ring-toss games and stuff, how they rig it so the chances of winning anything worthwhile are slim to none. It just doesn’t make any sense to be able to spin for free.”
The carny’s smile gleamed. “And yet, it is so.”
The air stood still as Tomas walked up to the wheel, and the enormity of the thing impressed him. It looked ancient but was gleamingly waxed, and reminded him of what a pirate captain’s table must have looked like. He reached out and gingerly grasped one of the pegs, almost expecting an electric shock…the thing must have been perfectly balanced in addition to being well-greased, for it spun easily and quietly as he jostled it slowly back and forth, feeling the reverberation of the stick tapping against the pegs. The metal plates glinted dully in the light as the wheel moved, and one glowing bulb hung directly over where the stick intersected the wheel as a pointer; Tomas could see the section beneath had a stylized symbol of a bird in flight engraved upon the plate, but without any words or labels the meaning of this was unknowable. He inhaled through his nose, let out half his breath through his mouth, and swung the ponderous wheel clockwise.
Immediately the stick began to report as the pegs raced past; at first each impact was indistinguishable from the next but as the weight of the wheel began to slow its rotations, they soon turned into a rapid-fire staccato and then to individual ticks, until finally the pegs creeped to a halt. Tomas and the sideshow worker both approached and craned their necks to see where the stick was pointing. It was not a symbol Tomas had seen before, resembling two adjacent capital letter X’s with horizontal lines across top and bottom, and above them an inverted triangle point-down in the middle
Rota breathed in sharply, then spoke. “ثلاث أمنيات”
<thalath ‘umniaat>.
Tomas looked at the symbol, turning his head slightly as if peering at it from another perspective might help decipher the sigil. “What does that mean? What is thatlath…what is it?”
Rota, still leaning over the wheel, moved only his eyes to meet the gaze of the man near him. “This means Sir may receive three things he desires.” He pointed to one X, then the other, then to the point where the triangle met the line. “One, and two, and three.”
Tomas smirked, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. “Wishes? I won wishes, like from a…a genie in a lamp?”
The carny broke off his eye contact at once, and his smile was gone. “You should not speak of the Djinn with disregard.” He looked up again, his eyes deadly serious. “When we speak of wishes and desires, it is not as a storybook would show with diamonds flowing from thin air and houses of cakes and candies springing from the Earth. All things come from energy, even…” he knelt, scooping up a pinch of earth between thumb and forefinger. “Even this soil, as solid as it feels to my fingers, is formed from energy.”
He brushed the dirt from his fingers, then spread his hands wide.
“Who is to say they know for sure, what may and may not be? This Wheel has shown what you will receive, and believing or not means less than nothing. Feel no rush; I advise you to return tomorrow…see this as the opportunity it is, consider the options and listen to your heart. It should tell you what it is you truly desire. Just–” the man chuckled. “–just be careful of words you say out loud, yes?”
The rest of the evening passed quickly and felt like a dream as Tomas made his way back to his modest house. He opened the front door and instinctively glanced over at the coat rack to see if Molly’s coat was hanging. The rack, of course, was empty, and the silence of the house washed over him, bringing with it the remembrance of her voice and of her golden curls between his fingers.
It was astonishing, really, Tomas thought, that despite the afternoon crowds tromping past chattering wildly, taking photos and pointing and laughing, despite humanity’s constant flow past the tent he still seemed to be the only one even glancing at it. He brushed the front flap aside and continued watching the people walk past, not a single pair of eyes sparing him a look as he again backed into the tent and allowed the flap to fall into place before him.
Turning to face the room he saw Rota standing, a smile again playing on the man’s lips as he nodded in greeting.
“Sir has returned, as he must. Have you–”
“I want Molly back.” The words tumbled from his mouth like drunken acrobats. “She left me, eight months ago, just left…I came home from work and she was gone, her clothes were gone, not a word. I haven’t stopped thinking about her. That’s what I wish, Rota. I wish to spend the rest of my life with her, like we were supposed to do.”
Rota’s dark eyes glittered in the dim illumination of the tent, his expression inscrutable.
Tomas cleared his throat and took a piece of paper from his pocket. “So that’s one out of the way. I’ve given my other two wishes a lot of thought, and it seems like it boils down to two things: money and power. Long life would be great but I’d prefer the power, Rota…the money is a given of course. For my second wish, I–”
Rota interrupted, stepping on top of Tomas’ words, “I would like to tell Sir a story. It is the story of a man with three wishes. It is the story of a man who wished for his woman to be with him always, a woman named Molly with her golden curls.
It is the story of a woman named Molly, dead for months, although the man had not known. It is the story of a man whose second wish, weeks later, spoken in horror and in tears in this very tent, was to rewind his life in order to undo his first wish, to forget what those weeks had brought upon him. The end of my story is this man returning now, and of his final wish, which I have now heard.”
The walk home was on numb feet, his reflection almost unrecognizable in the windows he passed. As Tomas opened the front door and saw the tattered, rotting fabric of the coat on the rack, he breathed deep and closed his eyes.
“Molly?”