And we're off.
Nov. 1st, 2007 06:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltd653 words after midnight and before work.
A sample for your reading pleasure.
There had always been a Phantasmagoria.
Somewhere, in the dim dead remains of the past, it had begun: a juggler in Babylon or a dancer in Crete, a snake-charmer in Memphis or an acrobat in Palmyra. One by one they had come together, and the Phantasmagoria took on its own life.
It watched the Pyramids rise and Troy fall. It entertained as Alexander swept east and the Visigoths swept west. The dead carts rolled and the Renaissance revitalized Europe. And always, the Phantasmagoria was there.
The acts came and went, dwarfs and dancers, giants and storytellers, freaks and fortunetellers, but the show continued on.
The Enlightenment and Industry brought new techniques to the ancient show, and the Phantasmagoria carried these, as well as knowledge and disease wherever it traveled. To India, to learn the secrets of the fakirs, and China where pretty girls touch the tops of their heads with the soles of their feet. To Russia, amid fire-eaters and fortunetellers and into Africa, where men grew tall as trees.
In America, the railroad sped the travel and the Phantasmagoria learned and created anew the vaudeville and traveling carnival. Times changed and the Phantasmagoria roared through the twenties, horrified through the fifties and endured the arrival of movies and television.
But always, there was the show.
Always, there was the Phantasmagoria.
A sample for your reading pleasure.
There had always been a Phantasmagoria.
Somewhere, in the dim dead remains of the past, it had begun: a juggler in Babylon or a dancer in Crete, a snake-charmer in Memphis or an acrobat in Palmyra. One by one they had come together, and the Phantasmagoria took on its own life.
It watched the Pyramids rise and Troy fall. It entertained as Alexander swept east and the Visigoths swept west. The dead carts rolled and the Renaissance revitalized Europe. And always, the Phantasmagoria was there.
The acts came and went, dwarfs and dancers, giants and storytellers, freaks and fortunetellers, but the show continued on.
The Enlightenment and Industry brought new techniques to the ancient show, and the Phantasmagoria carried these, as well as knowledge and disease wherever it traveled. To India, to learn the secrets of the fakirs, and China where pretty girls touch the tops of their heads with the soles of their feet. To Russia, amid fire-eaters and fortunetellers and into Africa, where men grew tall as trees.
In America, the railroad sped the travel and the Phantasmagoria learned and created anew the vaudeville and traveling carnival. Times changed and the Phantasmagoria roared through the twenties, horrified through the fifties and endured the arrival of movies and television.
But always, there was the show.
Always, there was the Phantasmagoria.
The D-Man checks in