Bright Lights and Long Knives

The crowd gasped as the knife thrower flipped the seventh blade high above his head. The whirlwind of knives cut a beautiful arc through the air. Then, as suddenly as it all started, the shining blades came to rest, three in each hand, one in his mouth, and he bowed to the applause of the crowd.

"Now, for my final and most deadly trick, I will require a volunteer from the audience." His eyes swept the crowd. "You there, the fat redhead in the green dress!"

He guestured sharply at the woman, sitting in the third row, as a soft murmur rose from the crowd. The woman sat, dumbstruck.

"Come now, madame, we can all see you, even if we can't see all of you." He smiled a wide, toothy smile. The crowd had gone silent. "I know it's hard, but I need you to hoist yourself out of that chair and waddle down here into the ring."

She rose from her seat and walked down into the spotlight.

"Now, do you have a name?"

She mouthed something, inaudible despite the silence.

"Jennifer? Ladies and gentleman..." he cried, his rich voice carrying easily to the far corners of the tent, "...I give you, Jennifer!"

He waited for the applause to die down.

"Now Jennifer, lets speak plainly for a moment. You are tremendously fat."

She again mouthed silent words of protest.

"Come now Jenny, speak up for the crowd!"

"I'm not that fat!" she shouted, her shrill voice straining to be heard.

"Not that fat? My dear, you are a pig. You are a gross spectacle of human decadence! You are a walking tribute to the power of the Buffet! To stand this close to your putrid, sweaty hulk of a body, to feel the heat rising off it's disgusting corpulence, to breathe in the rank odour of your heaving, fleshy bulk, why madame, it makes me want to vomit up my own lungs and shit my pants, all at the same time."

"However!" he said, talking over her protests, "I have a solution. Go stand against that board."

"Now!" he turned, and adressed the crowd. "I'm assuming everyone here has heard of acupuncture. Yes, the secret art of the slant-eyed devils from the wild and far east."

He walked a slow pace, away from the fat woman, now trembling up against the large wooden board on one edge of the ring.

"Sadly, like most men, our saffron brothers shied away from true power. They reached the edge, and were afraid to make the bold leap into the unknown."

As he spoke, he drew two long, cruel-looking knives from within his sleeves.

"I, however, hold no such fears. There is a thin woman hiding inside you, Miss Jennifer..." his back was still turned as he spoke, "...and I intend to free her!"

He suddenly spun, and hurled the two knives toward her. They punched home with a sick, wet slap. She screamed in pain as the knives stuck, hilts wobbling, each positioned perfectly between shoulder and collarbone. The woman slumped, but the knives held her fast, pinning her to the board. Her screams echoed round the tent, high and terrible, the screeching death knell of a wounded beast. Several audience members were violently sick in the stands.

The knife thrower shook his head.

"Dear oh dear, such a racket you're making, Miss Jennifer. You're upsetting the crowd! Let's see if we can't do something about this."

A smaller, broader knife appeared in his hand, and he hurled it with blinding speed, striking her in the throat. Instantly her screams were silenced, replaced by a small gurgling, then nothing.

"Much better. Now, let the real work begin!"

He produced knife after knife from the hidden folds and recesses of his outfit, hurling them one after the other in quick succession at the struggling woman. She may have been silenced, but the fierce struggling, the terrible aspect of her eye let the crowd know she was still very much alive and aware, despite the spreading pool of gore below her.

The knives sliced in cleanly, staking out a wide circle around the enormous girth of her stomach with geometric precision. As the seventh and final knife struck home, directly below her sternum, the woman gave a mighty shudder. Fresh gouts of blood spurted from her wounds, and she seemed on the verge of shaking herself apart. Blood frothed out her mouth, and her eyes flushed red as the capillaries burst from the pressure.

Finally, a loud tear cut through the deep and terrible silence that had descended upon the crowd. Her stomach split open, and wave of blood washed out onto the floor it. and with it, a naked human form. It rose unsteadily to it's feet, and looked about the tent in a drunken haze. Long copper hair shone bright like a living flame under the spotlight. It was a woman. A young, thin woman, clearly beautiful despite the scarlett blood still dripping from her skin. Perhaps because of it.

Behind her, the skin of the fat woman remained stuck to the board, looking like an empty suit haphazardly hung in a closet. The knife thrower strode forward and grabbed her by the hand.

"Ladies and Gentleman, I give you the new Jennifer!"

Hand in hand, they bowed to the thunderous ovation of the crowd.