I was seven the first time I saw the parade.
At some point during the uncharted hours between bedtime and dawn, I woke to the sound of music. It was a jaunty, slightly out-of-tune orchestra of strings, drums and a pipe organ. The melody would have sounded light-hearted at a carnival, but in the middle of the night, it turned my room ice cold.
Shutting my eyes, I curled up as tight as I could beneath my Snoopy blanket, thin protection against whatever lurked outside, and tried to force myself back to sleep.
The music was soon accompanied by the shouts and whoops of a crowd. I caught the scent of food. It smelled fried and salty and a lot tastier than the PB&J Dad had thrown in front of me on the dinner table.
Desperate to see what was outside but dreading what I would find, I pushed myself up and peered through the window.
It was late autumn. The trees outside were bare so nothing prevented me from seeing the congregation filling my street. Dozens of figures walked, danced, spun and somersaulted along the road outside our house. Among them rolled wagons, covered in paintings of birds, forests, cities, deserts, monsters and maps of unknown continents.
Musicians sat on the wagons playing their jolly tune on horns made of bone and fiddles carved to resemble serpents. The wagon's roofs held miniature kitchens with vats of chocolate and trays crowded with fried bread.
While the figures were visible beneath my neighborhood's orange streetlights, several minutes passed before I actually saw them, as if my seven-year-old brain could not comprehend what was in front of me. No member of the parade looked the same. Many didn't even appear to be the same species. Half of them had the heads of wolves, mountain cats, ravens, snakes or bears. Others had dead-white skin, black fangs and glowing red eyes. Women fluttered about on wings of dead leaves, strumming guitars with crooked claws. Then there were the old men with ten-foot-long limbs who skittered about on all fours like giant spiders.
None of it was fake. These weren't actors in costume. There was no doubt that everything I was seeing was real.
At last, the parade ended with a lumbering wagon in the shape of a fat, red dragon that blew smoke from its nostrils. Soon it too disappeared and the music faded.
Hours later, the sun finally rose and my neighborhood once again became a place of chain link fences, and Walmart shopping bags crumpled in the gutter. I told myself it had all been a dream. Of course I knew it wasn't. What I had seen was more real than my friends, my teachers, or even my parents. I never bothered telling any of them what I had seen.
#
I learned a lot when I was eight. I learned that two multiplied by three equals six and Columbus didn't actually "discover" anything. I learned that it hurts when your dad slaps you and it hurts even more when your best friends run off to play with cooler kids. While watching the Fourth of July concert I learned that I wanted to be a guitarist when I grew up. I also learned that adults just roll their eyes when kids say stuff like that.
I often thought about the parade, but something so nightmarishly marvelous was impossible to believe in during the summer when everything was hot, bright and smelled like sunscreen.
However, as it always does, the weather eventually cooled and one night in late November I heard the out-of-tune carnival music once again. At first I remained curled up, scared that it was a dream and terrified that it wasn't.
At last I sat up just enough to peek out the window as the twisted parade marched, tumbled, danced and rolled on by. It was just as strange and warped as I remembered, but this time I noticed the children running between the wagons. I wanted so badly to run outside and make friends, but I stayed where I was, partly because the children out there had fangs, claws and the faces of beasts, but also because I didn't have any of those things. I was too mundane for such freakish frivolity.
#
The parade marched by every year after that, and every time it passed I noticed something different.
When I was nine I noticed the images painted along the side of the wagons told the story of a warrior who fought evil villagers to save the monsters she loved.
When I was ten I noticed the women dancing with scarves that didn't quite hide all of their breasts.
When I was eleven I noticed the lantern girl.
She was willowy, all knees and elbows, with a dark green jerkin, raven black hair, and a pair of empty eye sockets that each contained a flickering flame. Bundled up within my blankets I watched as she skipped down the street, strumming a guitar longer than she was tall.
During the winter, spring and summer leading up to my first year of junior high, I caught myself thinking of her. Despite the fire in her head, or maybe because of it, there was something uniquely beautiful about her.
#
The autumn of sixth grade was the first year I didn't hesitate to look out my window. As soon as I heard the music, I sat up and spotted her playing the guitar while two other girls strummed instruments beside her.
I leaned forward to get a better look, slipped and smacked my face against the window.
The other two girls kept on dancing, but the lantern girl stared up at me.
I pulled back, picturing them bashing the door down, sticking me on a spit and roasting me until my fat dribbled into the fire.
She gave a little wave.
I realized I was waving back.
A moment later her friends returned and pulled her along. She gave me one last smile before joining them.
#
All throughout middle school the lantern girl and I waved to one another whenever the parade passed. During seventh grade I mouthed the word "Hey!" During eighth grade she held up a sign that asked, "What's your name?"
It wasn't until my freshman year of high school that I motioned for her to come to me. I hadn't planned to. It was a spur of the moment muscle spasm.
But she saw me and ran to the door.
For a moment I sat on the edge of my mattress, soaked in a cold sweat. Maybe this was a trap. The creatures of the parade could be demons, forced to travel the world until Judgement Day.
There was a tap at the door.
I held my breath, praying that my dad would wake up. If anyone deserved to be dragged along on an eternal dark procession it was him.
The taps continued.
No one stirred in the other rooms.
I pulled myself up and walked downstairs, stepping on every creaky floorboard, hoping to wake someone.
When I reached the front door, I saw a thin shadow waiting on the other side of the frosted glass. I nearly ran back upstairs but knew that would lead to a year of regret. With a mouth as dry as the dead, I opened the door.
Up close I could see her twin flames, one orange the other red, set like a pair of candles inside her skull. She smiled. "Hey."
I nodded. "Hey."
"Call me Flight." She glanced over her shoulder. "I can't stay long, but you can invite me in if you want."
I invited her.
Not knowing what else to do, I took her on the grand tour. I pointed out the pictures of my family in the living room. I showed her the guitar I'd spent a year saving for and introduced her to our tomcat, Chester, who let her pet him under his chin. I took her upstairs to show her my room and books. My big sister had left her door open and we giggled at the way she farted in her sleep.
Far too soon, Flight said, "I need to go." She took my hand and I flinched. It was the first time a girl had touched me like that. "You need to stay here."
"Why?" I asked. It wasn't until that moment that I realized I wanted to go with her more than anything.
She smiled. "Do you really think you're ready?"
I wasn't. I had no idea why not. Lord knows it wasn't school or my two asshole friends holding me back. My parents would miss me, but it wasn't like I was shaping up to be anything they wanted in a kid.
"You can't come yet. But would you like to hang out again?"
"Yeah!" I flinched at how eager I sounded.
She kissed me on my cheek. "I hope you're happier when I see you again."
I could still feel her kiss the next morning and the morning after that and all through the holidays with my family. It kept me warm all winter long.
#
When the parade came by the following November, Flight was at the very front. She saw me at my window and ran to the door. As soon as she was inside we began to talk. I told her about my family's vacation to Boston and she told me she was learning the organ and wanted to get a raven to sit on her shoulder.
The parade had grown over the years. Now it took hours to pass by, so long we ran out of things to say. Somehow we ended up sitting on my front stoop holding hands. We didn't even need to talk. The world just felt easier being with her.
She ran her hand over my front door. "It must be nice to live in one place."
"You can stay here if you want," I suggested. "Then you can join them again when they come by next fall."
She laughed and shook her head. "My family would miss me."
It was probably for the best. The kids at school would eat her alive if they saw the candles in her eyes.
I was about to ask if I could join her parade, just for a few hours, when, without warning, she kissed me.
We kissed long and hard, clinging to each other on my front stoop. She was warm and smelled of a deep midnight forest. I clung to her arms, but let her go when she pulled away and whispered, "I'll see you next autumn."
#
Eleventh grade was the year I formed a band, but we never booked any gigs. We barely practiced. For the most part we just sat around my cousin's garage talking about how great it would be when we were famous.
I extended my time with Flight that year by walking along the edge of the parade, and got to meet some of her friends. I brought my guitar and sang and danced with them and forgot all about my shitty grades and dreams that would never come true.
But we inevitably reached the town's edge.
She took my hand. "You're ready."
I pulled out of her grip.
"What's wrong?" Her face fell.
I opened my mouth to explain it was just a muscle spasm, that I didn't mean it, that I wanted to go with her. But I pressed my lips together and backed away.
She stared, the hurt as clear as the flames in her eyes.
"I'm sorry," I said. Or at least I would have said if I hadn't been running back to my cardboard-thin mattress, crying and cursing myself the whole way.
#
All throughout the summer going into my senior year, Dad lectured me about how I needed to figure out what I was going to do with my life. "I'm talking about what do you seriously want to do? Not this music crap."
My friends who always said they would survive by creating art were looking into colleges and talking about internships. I even got a sermon from the guy who sold me pot that I needed to take my future seriously.
That was when I finally decided to join the parade. No more muscle spasms, no more cowardly retreating. If they would have me I was ready.
When fall arrived, I kept a bag at the foot of my bed packed with extra clothes and my favorite books. I was even friendlier to my parents and sister because I knew that soon I would never see them again.
At last the time came.
At the sound of the jaunty tune, I leapt from my bed, grabbed my bag and guitar and looked out the window. What I saw was a mob of monsters.
The parade most likely looked no different than it had before, but now, with my bags packed and my safety net on the verge of snapping, I realized I was about to join a horde of abominations. Dancing and tumbling with fire blazing on the wagon's roof kitchens, they reminded me of the choruses of hell I'd seen in medieval paintings.
This was a trap. Hadn't I read a thousand stories where some idiot was tricked by the devil? I pictured myself joining them and feeling the chains tighten around my throat. I would be damned to wander forever in this Flying Dutchman of a parade.
Out on the street Flight rushed to our door and began to knock.
I dropped my bag and guitar, curled up in bed and shut my eyes until the knocking finally ceased.
#
At the absolute barest of last seconds I managed to pull my act together to not only graduate on time, I was actually accepted to a few colleges that were a quarter of the way to being decent. I chose the one furthest away so I could only come home during the summer.
Throughout the autumn of my freshman year, I expected to hear out of tune carnival music on the street outside my dorm. However, the parade never took that route.
Dad said he would only help me pay for college if I majored in business. I tried to also major in Performing Art but couldn't stand the workload.
However, I did eventually find time to start a band sophomore year. We did some decent gigs, opening for a local group. For two whole seconds I thought I could live off my music. Then college ended, and I got a look at the chunk of the bill Dad hadn't paid for. I might as well have majored in what I wanted and paid the whole thing.
I got a day job in the mailroom of some financial company. My boss wasn't keen on all the hours I'd miss to get to gigs on time. Eventually my band found another guitarist. She was supposed to be temporary. Then she was long-term. Then she was permanent. Then I was out. A few months later I lost my job anyway, got evicted, and drove across the country, back to my parents' house.
#
That November I saw the parade for the first time in six years. Now it seemed to have more musicians than ever.
When I saw who was playing the organ, I ran out the front door shouting, "Flight!"
Even from a block away I could see her eyes held enough fury to burn my neighborhood to the ground. She tapped a girl who took over the instrument, leapt from the wagon and stormed toward me. "Where the hell have you been?"
"I'm sorry."
"I thought we were friends."
"We are! You have no idea how much I've…. Is it too late to—"
She shoved me onto the ground. "Go back to where you belong. " Flight ran to catch up with her wagon, taking her place at the organ.
#
A few months later I went back to school to get my teacher's certificate. I figured I might as well be a teacher. I'd watched other people try to do it my whole life.
The following summer I moved out of my parent's house and into an apartment down the road. I couldn't afford it but the place gave me the perfect view of the street so I could see the parade as it passed by.
#
My old high school eventually hired me as a substitute and later on as a full-time teacher.
For years I watched the parade from my apartment but never attempted to join.
I tried to write my own music or form a new band, but nothing worked out. I'd spend nine hours a day dealing with students who needed help I couldn't give, parents who needed to take their frustration out on me, and an ever-growing stack of assignments that needed grading. It was all too easy to crash on the couch and fall into whatever happened to be on TV.
Back in college I'd assumed my friends and I would be the next Beat Generation. We'd been bursting with creativity. Of course we would set the world on fire with our artistic revolution.
However throughout their twenties my friends started families and careers that consumed their lives. Whenever I asked about their writing or music they talked about their art as if it was a half-forgotten hobby they were embarrassed about.
By the time I hit thirty the parade's music no longer roused me. Occasionally I heard it in the distance, but I was so exhausted I rolled over and fell back asleep.
#
My life had fallen into a lonely rut when I met June, our school's new biology teacher. We only dated for a few months before I proposed. We married the following autumn.
On the night before our wedding I sat outside my apartment staring at the street until the first dancers emerged from the darkness.
I watched the procession until I spotted Flight playing her old guitar. Two tiny girls with guitars of their own accompanied her. One had wings covered in red feathers. The other had the face of a lion cub and a raven perched on her shoulder.
They passed without noticing me and were on the verge of rounding the corner when I ran after them. "Flight!"
To my amazement, she turned and her face split into a smile, with her two flames flickering merrily. "Where have you been?"
"Right here." I pointed at the apartment. "I live here now."
"Why didn't you ever come out to say hi?"
"I thought you were mad at me."
She looked puzzled and then seemed to remember the last time we'd talked. "You dope!" She punched my shoulder. "Did you think I wasn't going to forgive you? We were kids." Flight hugged me. "I've missed you so much."
The hug ended too soon. She motioned to the two girls. "This is Scurry and Dart, my daughters."
"Oh, you're… Congratulations."
"I'm assuming you're congratulating me about my recent breakup because my ex is one huge…." She glanced down and realized her kids were listening. "My ex lives in someone else's wagon now."
I walked along with them for several miles. We chatted about our lives while Dart and Scurry stared up, wondering about their mother's weird friend.
When we reached the town limits, Flight took my hand. "Just for the record, we still want you to come along."
I contemplated the offer much longer than I should have. At last I said, "I'm getting married tomorrow."
She nodded. "That's great."
"Thanks."
"But I'll see you next year?"
"We're moving to Phoenix in the summer."
Flight squeezed my hand. "So we should say goodbye for now."
The way she said it made me painfully aware of all the years I had been too busy, tired or scared to join her.
At last she released my hand and walked on with her daughters until they disappeared beyond the edge of town.
#
June and I married the next day. We honeymooned in the Florida Keys the following week. We moved to Arizona in July. We divorced six years later.
Work simply took over. There was the constant stress of disruptive students, insultingly low paychecks, and condescending administrators. Then there was the nagging jealousy that while we grew older our students remained the same age. They were still at the beginning of their lives. None of them had trapped themselves yet.
One day after years of tepid, polite, friendly marriage, June hinted that this wasn't the life either of us wanted. At the age of thirty-seven she still thought she could start over. I wasn't convinced but didn't fight the divorce.
I transferred to a school system outside Chicago where I frequented a bar that featured local college bands. During those long, smoky hours I caught myself thinking of Flight, smelling her dark, midnight forest scent.
For decades I wondered how things would be different if I had gone with them when I was in high school or after college or before I married or after the divorce. There were nights in early autumn when I considered making an all-night road trip back to my hometown, but with every year that passed I became more convinced that I was too late. That window was shut.
#
June called a few months ago. "Just checking your pulse to see if you're still alive."
She still teaches, but she and her new spouse also make documentaries on environmental disasters. Their films have won a few awards and have gained quite a bit of attention.
Our conversation was just wrapping up when she asked, "Didn't you want to do something with music once?"
"Yeah, I did."
Before I could change the subject she asked, "What's stopping you?"
I laughed, "I'm sixty-seven, June."
"I know. But what's stopping you?"
#
The next day I told the administration I would be retiring at the end of the school year, but I only lasted another week.
As I write this sentence, I'm sitting in my old bedroom in my childhood home that was left to rot ages ago. I've been squatting here since August. I'm writing this because I want someone to know what happened to me. I'm still not entirely certain this isn't a trap.
I hear the music in the distance.
When I peek through the boards covering the windows I see the first of the winged women and a man with the face of a serpent.
Maybe this is a trick. I don't know if I'm making the wrong choice.
I can see Flight with her two grown daughters.
If this is a trap, I'm theirs. After all these decades they can have me.
My bag's packed. I have my guitar. It's time to go.