Helter Skelter

A Handy Job

"Cesarius! Lucia! Blake! C'mon out you lazy puttycats!" I don't sound as determined as Esmeralnda would like me to sound, as I select a hearty piece of steak and drag it across the bars of the cage, like an ironic prisoner of jail. As memorable as the people here are, I still couldn't be able to match the faces of the lions with their name. Apart from Lucia, that is, who was the only lioness, and the only lion healthy enough to approach me for food. Esmeralda must have taken out her anger on their back. It wouldn't be unusual if someone confused them with a distinct breed of tiger. She sniffs at the meat and delicately removes it from my hand, scoffing it down in one bite. "Good. You like that?" I reach my hand out to stroke her slick head, but she winces away. I was surprised not to be greeted with a brutal behavior. The other two don't even bother to look at me, causing me to toss their meat into their filthy hay with limited aim. Watching them really made me think. Are we the animals, or are they the animals? It wasn't their choice to make a living off of performing. In fact, it was more like making a death. I kept hauling chunks and chunks of meat at them, finding myself to be holding hands. Hands? Lifted by a limp finger was a chopped off hand, dangling right in front of me. I shudder, and it drops back into the bucket with my shiver.

"Do you like them?" I look up, my vision still coated in shock, and of course, Arabella, free from chains apart from that bruise across her face, smirked, twirling on the stick to her lollipop.

"No! Is this some kind of joke?! Where did Esmeralda get a mutilated hand in the first place?!"

"The lions." Arabella replied calmly, "do you like our lions?" she sticks a hand through the bars and lets Lucia gnaw on it lovingly. My insides turned into a wet t-shirt, twisted to be dried.

"There's a hand in the bucket." Who'd blame me for feeling uneasy?

"There is?" Arabella's face lit up; she gracefully leans over and bobs her head inside the bucket, returning back up with the hand in her teeth. I turn to gag. "D'you need it?" She examines it proudly.

"N-no..?!"

"Man up, Dave, it's made out of rubber." She squishes it. Sour cherry blood guzzles from the wrist and onto Arabella's.

"No...it's not...!"

"Oh don't be weird." She licks it off, mimicking the lions, tracing her lips with her tongue to ensure no drop was lost, "it's only a prop. It's food coloring and water." She waved it around to prove it wasn't real, but it only proved that it wasn't alive. At least. "See you round', Dave." She smirks, jerking it around by a finger as she walked past me. I could hear the bones crack under its dead skin.  And yet she skipped ahead so gracefully, as if they were PopRocks, walking next to her. As usual, I watched as she left; feeling only slightly guilty this time when the mist of the sunny morning devoured her. And the hand. Was it weird she wore a skull in her hair?