The Inexplicable Krasznahorkai!

“Brothers and sisters and siblings unmentionable, the time has come to move on. Make heading for yonder mountains and the little town beyond, where our delectable delights are sure to confound. Pack our palisades away and with haste, for the attention of the sky has turned to ground.”

And so it was with those words, spoken by a tongue not unfamiliar with how the warm reception originally proffered up by yet another flaccid town had mildewed into yet another sorry scab of mistrust, The Inexplicable Krasznahorkai’s Majestic Carnival Of Curiousness began first to budge, then to sway and, finally, to roll inexorably away in a most cantankerous fashion, all the while drilled upon by a torrential downpour. The vertiginous locomotion of throbbing diesel engines worked in unison with the laborious agitation of pale and frothing mules to drive countless creaking wheels through the gummous and imbibing mud. Splayed chimneys perched precariously on rolling engine frames and belched forth torrents of thick and black fumes. Whips cracked upon hirsute flanks as they toiled beneath the protracted peals that emanated from the oppressive thunderama. Voluminous drops of rain hissed and sizzled and spat as they collided with the pitted casings of steaming engine tins. And as the carnival finally began to make a noticeable pace, the whole parade squawked and buckled and baulked the procession into a raggedy yet unrelenting momentum.

The myriad of tents, including the colossal big top that stood monolithic in the centre of the effervescent carnival, as well as the glut of stalls and huts and scaffolding and other peripherals relating to the spectacle had been packed up and stashed away with a speed and precision only procured through years of experience in the matters of binding and stowing. The garishly painted carriages that now contained the melange of bound and stowed apparel seemed to bulge under the density of the mass compressed within, and the chugging machine that did drag them across the sucking land audibly creaked and visibly strained as it hauled them. This machine, the largest and most decrepit of the three steam tractors condemned to tow the condensed carnival, took the head of the sombre cavalcade and set a slow and torturous pace, the coughing and choking fremitus of its straining engine clearly palpable beneath the din of the thunderous and atramentous squall. As the chthonian contraption jolted and juddered, a bucking lantern that hung from the inside of the cab cast about an irritated light that sillouhetted the sullen and burly driver, whose head was smothered within the dry aurora of cigarette smoke.

The central part of the nigrescent parade was drawn by a steam engine wholly different in appearance, this one looking less like a maladroit tin shed mounted upon a wheeled chassis and a lot more like a vehicle designed for such labour as this. Four wheels – a pair of large and solid ones, each with a deep and heavy-set tread, positioned at the rear and a pair of smaller ones situated at the front, with spindly spokes and skinny tyres – were joined at each side by a pair of mechanical arms, the elbow of each genuflecting at the centre of the rear wheel and jutting up to join a variegation of spinning cogs and wheezing pistons that were spattered across the midriff of the vehicle. The front of the clangourous contrivance was entirely comprised of a large, cylindrical tank, held in place with mean-looking metal appendages that flexed over the curvature. The scorching tank sibilated wafts of boiling steam through the rattling chimney that emerged from its top and through which the engine would regularly release a tortured whistle, which would fling open the hinged flap at the top and spit sour odours into the air. A sign on the side of the driver’s cab, which was situated at the rear of the vehicle above the two driving wheels, read “Bleak Bessie”, although it was barely legible beneath the mud thrown upwards from the tyres. A solitary windscreen wiper worked tirelessly, its crabby movements leaving blackened streaks of rubber across the spider-web cracks in the glass.

The carriages behind this train were consumed amidst a brew of braying and trumpeting and lowing and mewling and howling and clucking and hissing and neighing and a host of other bestial utterances. These carriages contained a great deal of the curiousness of the carnival. The garish circus pasticcio inscribed upon the side of each individual carriage gave some inclination to the wonders contained within. These ranged from the curious at the head of the train, such as “Witness the Spectacle of the Worlds Fiercest Dog!”, “Listen to the Roar of the Worlds Loudest Elephant!” and “See the Only Living Chicken-Dwarf in Captivity!”, through to the insidious at the rear… “Bear your Soul and Bear Witness to the Cows Afflicted with Holy Stigmata!”, “The Worlds ONLY Half-Embryonic Tiger, for the Rumours are TRUE!” and “Witness the Cat with the Brain of a Mule and See it Drag A Heavy Thing!” Each bombastic anecdote was accompanied by the relevant promulgation from within the carriage, each occupant voicing their displeasure at the bump and grind of transport and the wet and ghastly weather.

Following this train was the third and last of the steam-driven vehicles, a thunderous claptrap of a jalopy that eructated great billows of steam from the trio of tin chimneystacks that stood proud on the roof of the contraption. The tractor shared a similar shape to the lead vehicle, resembling little more than a tin shack with wheels but this time with a protuberance from the front that housed the mechanisms of the engine. Two front wheels connected to this protrusion, the remainder housed beneath the corrugated walls of the vehicle and hardly visible beneath the machine as it drudged ever onwards through the greedy mud.

It towed behind it a series of ornate and yet functional carriages and caravans, which in turn towed several horses behind them, each ankle deep and struggling through the bibulous loam. This segment of peregrination was decorated in a similar way to the lowing and braying caravans in front, but the overall appearance was far more muted. The garishness of the larger carriages had been replaced with an entrancing detail, the pasticcio on each being smaller and more intricate than elsewhere in the train. Each painting was representative of the kind of spectacles that travelled inside the procession – The knife-throwers and fire-breathers and the dwarves and clairvoyants, the contortionists and mediators and the geeks and freaks, the blind man who can read and the crazy, hairless child that can only survive in the dark, the bearded ladies and the breasted men and the children who towered at seven foot tall and the man who lives underwater and the oldest woman in the world.

Behind the three steam trains and their juddering travel was a final carriage, drawn by a quintet of horses. It was a spectacular salmagundi of crimson paint, flamboyant metal railings, complicated and curving architecture and crimson paint. The caravan was raised higher than the others, accommodating a complex system of springs and pistons and inflatable bags that was attached to the undercarriage. These were further connected to the axle by winding ligaments, the end result smoothing out the irregular and jarring bumps in the ground. There was one window in each side of the caravan and above each one, inscribed in a meticulous and twisted fashion upon a painted scroll, were the words “The Inexplicable Krasznahorkai!”

Lightning cracked across the umbrage of the sky and the lead horse of the five neighed and shook its head. The driver cracked his whip and then took yet another long swig of some dirty liquor. The procession wormed across the land towards the mountains, following the one road that lead through the Itchy Heaps into the pastures beyond and up to the gate of the walls of Corby.