We Were Carnival

The carnival characters were placed unceremoniously inside a chain-linked fence, on a small lot anchored by an abandoned one-story building. The overgrown lot, neighbored by a small apartment building on one side and a rumbling industrial street on the other, failed to garner any attention from truck drivers and commuters grinding through their day. Me, merely a curious traveler with time on his hands, pulled over.

I entered the lot with trepidation, wondering if angry dogs or scurrying rats would be my greeters. Neither appeared. Instead, more and more of these retired carnival characters appeared from the weeds, tattered and in varying states of decay. But like battered old cars lining some junk strewn yard - awaiting ambition, or rescue - these once proud characters seemed to know their best days were behind them.