Day after sunny day, the plaza was ablaze with the movements of visceral flames. Each street performer offered a fresh pocket of existence for the passerby to immerse their attention into. People of all ages encircled the performers, extracting an income of intrigue pregnant with wisdom to come for the young. The wisdom carried by the old blossomed into the most beautiful flowers in their ghost, showing them a glimpse of bliss. Although the performers clogged some of the roads for the passerby to walk through on some special occasions and festivities, the caravan of Mangiafuoco always considered a specific space for whenever the doll performed in conjunction with experienced entertainers. A space big enough for them to not block a road and choke the throng of people during the days they performed. Little did the people know the shadows the performer’s casted, gaping into one omnipotent abyss.

Pinocchio was the only outside of the performers who noticed the lead staining their hearts. No matter how wonderfully they acted or danced, the doll saw the strings of their frayed hearts wrapping around their fire for life, subduing it into faint humming embers. The true fire of their art flickered in its absence, a fire so pure that the heat escaped it and its incandescence died. Fire devoid of its characteristics engulfed their hearts, transfiguring their ever bleeding nature into prismatic rays of light. Their ability to turn pitiful destruction into something awesome inspired admiration from the doll, which blended with his pity and confusion for life’s complexity. Something instinctual whispered to him that the complexity is merely an illusion dressed in jewels. But the doll, unlike some of the more gloomy actors, believed that this golden glow decorating their darkest shadows was just as real as their pain.

“How could such a miserable group of people seem so happy?” Pinocchio thought, unable to fully grasp the ebb and flow of the human heart. Head lost in thoughts, his feet gravitated towards the castle-like portable building where the members of the circus troupe lived. As he had some time and was too exhausted to do anything else, a nap was the most wonderful thing imaginable. An innocent excitement moved him towards his bedroom which was above the main lobby and studios. It took him a long time to adjust himself to the absurd dimensions beyond the doors within the building. Some doors led to a wall, while others led to expanses so vast that the eye hungered to see what lay beyond those dream-woven horizons. Spaces constructed by manipulated music, sewing the limitlessness of the imagination within the limit of reality. So what he thought was his room for the umpteenth time was actually a dock surrounded by an endless ocean.

Unobscured sunlight ignited the expanse with a rich blue sky and turquoise waters. When Pinocchio walked out of the door and looked behind him, the door and its frame wasn’t there. Instead, a sea dock as far as his eyes could see stretched on in both directions. The ocean whispered the lullabye of serenity, reminding his mind of its many mysteries. Juxtaposed to the tranquility of his experience of the space, Cecilia, who he recognized as often playing the columbina character. She solemnly stared out into the horizon with her elbows against the rail, a pensive expression softening her facial features while sharpening her eyes into obsidian disks. Another universe, opposite to the gentle motions of the waves, danced in her eyes and boiled in her heart. It took her a while to notice the wooden doll standing next to her, merely staring in the same direction as her but looking over the edge of the parapet. Even when realizing his presence, she showed no signs of acknowledging it. A sigh that matched the voice of the water flowed out of her lips.

Her eyes slid from the horizon’s edge to the doll’s mohair, appreciating its pearly sheen under the sunless sunlight. Memories of seafoam kissing her feet ebbed into her mind and flowed out in the form of a sigh of nostalgia. There was a melody in that sigh that was so blissful that he couldn’t help but look up to observe its origin and smile. Her large almond shaped eyes told him a story he knew words would fail to convey. It was in her silence and the way she conducted herself, like an instrument playing itself with absolute perfection, that inspired the most profound sense of awe in Pinocchio. Studying her more, he understood that the music in her heart was being played with bleeding fingers and bloody hands. Both origins of the red were foreign to the doll and were even more foreign to the lady in the floral flowing dress. A crimson glow accompanied her music, articulating a past that aroused Pinocchio’s intrigue-born awe even more. An old warmth, buried under the dust of confinement, softened her frown to create a smile.

“And what have you been up to, nameless doll?”

Cords in a metal box in his throat rattled as he sighed, eyes downcast.

“I have a name, you know…” Pinocchio replied poutingly. Seeing that only made her smile grow. But a dark shadow washed it away as she shook her head.

“No, you don’t,” she firmly stated, “nor should you have any. Something about you screams impermanence which names don’t respect. It’s nice to be untethered by such trivial things. Sounds like a dream…” and her thoughts melted into the waves, returning to nothing.

“My name is really precious to me,” Pinocchio said to sever the silence between them. “It makes me feel like I belong here too.”

A beautifully thunderous laugh boomed out of her. It faded into the sound of a dying bonfire, sweetly crackling as it understood its close end. One final glow blossomed in her eyes before getting swallowed by experience.

“That’s… I’m really happy for you, Pinocchio.”

Her kind expression reminded the doll of the lush goodness sheltered in her barbed heart. But once again, ebony waves washed it away.

“You should feel like you belong somewhere else, somewhere better. Being locked in place by a name and history is something you don’t need to fear at all. Don’t you look at the horizon and wonder what lies beyond that? The possibilities and novelties there only your imagination can give color to.”

A detailed history he could never fully understand exuded from her words, making them dye his mind in a rich palette of thoughts. In spite of the pungent inspiration, Pinocchio couldn’t locate his mind or see any of its wonders. What he thought was a tree decked in healthy foliage became a mere shadow smeared on a barren land. There was nothing to grasp, nothing to know. Paralysed, Pinocchio stared at the line between the sea and the sky, losing himself in the vastness of his imagination.

“I…” His vocal chords rang, “I don’t think I am able to know what you mean. This place is all I’ve seen for now, so the rest is just fantasy.”

“Of course it’s all fantasy,” Cecilia said in a sunny tone, “a lot of things are. In fact, you can say that nearly everything is fantasy.”

For once, he understood exactly what someone said instead of trying to understand what they were saying. Such knowledge was buried deep within the layers of his music that the rest of the world didn’t seem to listen to but played in silence. Just like in the silence of the swaying flowers, the birdsong, the shape of objects, the dance of water. Their voices spoke to him so clearly and to his surprise the others were deaf to its melody.

“Even that little voice in the heart?” the doll asked.

“The heart?” she mockingly echoed with a smile. As they peered into each others’ eyes, Pinocchio noticed melancholy’s glow in her gaze, darkening her sunny smile.

“No, that can’t not be real. It’s the birthplace of the imagination and what fantasy is made of, but its fire is the most real thing that can ever be. It’s too real; so real that it hurts more than anything and can be hurt so brutally.”

Unable to understand her words on an embodied level, Pinocchio merely nodded as he stared into the turquoise water’s ever changing shapes. Within every curve of the water, a new thought emerged which morphed into a myriad of other thoughts. Each one changed in shape, never fully repeating itself. In his oceanic ghost, the doll followed the rhythm of the tides, listening to where they moved to. He couldn't fathom if they were going to a specific location, so he took a deep breath and enjoyed the aquatic melody without any expectation of a destination. It was a peaceful experience, and in the peace he understood the turmoil boiling in the oceans of her heart. A violent heat from a dark place shook the depths of her abyss, turning her darkness excruciatingly painful, but warm. Steeped in dreamlike tranquility, Pinocchio listened to the creative blaze of her heart.

“You know, I’ve been a little jealous of you ever since you arrived. So many of us wish that we can be like you. But no, our innocence gets slaughtered while we slaughter the innocence of others. And for what? To sustain what? It feels as though our own hearts are against us sometimes, but deep down I can’t accept that.”

Cecilia affixed her gaze to the doll’s turquoise eyes.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“What has that little voice in your heart been telling you?”

But the moment she asked that, it went silent. He tried to listen with all of his intent only to hear the sound of cogs rolling and clicking like a hundred clocks. Soon the clicks grew as numerous as the amount of waves on the turquoise waters, each rolling wave echoing a rolling cog. There were hints of things said, but the cacophonous nature of his heart made it impossible to understand any of it. So much was felt but none was communicable. He gripped the parapet of the bridge and attempted to calm the wild echoes of his clockwork heart.

“I.. Don’t know,” Pinocchio said with effort, “but I do know that there are a lot of voices in yours. There are as many waves as there are voices in your heart of hearts. Tell me what you’re feeling, and why you are in a place like this.”

He looked around again and became lost in the distance where the bridge met the horizon. She also wondered how far the bridge went, what it was connected to, what held it in place, and gave a cursory glance at the entire dreamscape.

“You only enter places like this if the heart asks for it. This place knows what the heart wants and will make spaces in accordance with its wishes. That must have not happened to you yet, as you are still deaf to yours. But let me tell you this one thing: don’t ever love someone with dreams larger than their hearts.”

A door appeared next to Cecilia which he only noticed when looking at her stoic countenance. Behind her stony stare into the horizon scintillated a cornucopia of passions, ones that she expressed on her life’s many stages and others that wouldn’t dare to touch the light. The weightful reality of such fiery feelings would burn her already charred heart to nothing but ash. Her dark eyes rolled from the bright turquoise waves up to piercing blue sky, ignoring the doll completely. Pinocchio’s voice became washed away by every wave between them, so he slowly made his way towards the door. As he opened the door and saw the diamond-shaped carpet in the hallway, he looked back one last time before closing the door. The final thing he saw was her stoic expression shatter into a sob with a large wave descending upon her frail state. With the click of the door, he left with a deep melancholy stinging his heart.

Hours pass and another successful show ended, fuelling Pinocchio’s pride with the sparkling cheers of the audience. All the performers bowed in unison, raising the noise of the cheer like an ocean’s wave whose power rushed through the performers. Back in the mobile circus, they cleaned their make-up and washed themselves from the sweat of a hard day’s work. Not needing to do so, Pinocchio wandered around only to find out that Adone the harlequin was missing. He went to ask Ciriaco the pulcinella, who only shrugged when he asked him the question.

“I can’t seem to find the columbina Cecilia either,” he said as he took his black mask off, exposing a strikingly youthful yet mature face.

Pinocchio ran off to find the two, looking through the halls and the lobbies, reaching the edge where he could look down and see the caravans litter the fields below.

Bathing in the chill of the night and the warmth of the lamps’ lights, he wandered through the field of caravans, listening closely and peeping through each window to find him. Eventually, in the private caravan of the columbina, he heard the familiar musical voice of his hero, the harlequin. Only instead of playing its usual gentle rhythms, his voice was stained with scorn and bitterness, making Pinocchio doubt if it was really him. But when he peered through a gap in the embroidered curtains, he saw Adone and Cecilia locked in a chaotic embrace that teetered on the edge of lust and abstinence. But lust won every battle. The caravan shook as Adone pinned her shoulder to the floor, distancing himself even just a little. Pinocchio pressed his ear against the glass to listen in on the muffled conversation.

“You can’t keep doing this Cecilia! You can’t keep dragging me here and use your sweet lies to get what you want.” Adone rebuked.

“You criticize me, but you still came, no? Why can’t we just play pretend like we do in our plays? And why can’t I enjoy you even though you enjoy me to your heart's content? You’re the greatest harlot I’ve ever seen.”

Adone sat down on the ground beside her, giving her room to sit up as well. Both their clothes were crumpled like trodden leaves.

“That was the past! I buried that and you should too. I realized how foolish it was to pretend to act as if you’re the one I love while that isn’t the case at all. My true love is far, far away and you’re nothing like her. I should’ve ended this relationship the moment you proposed the offer.”

In the burning silence, Adone took a deep breath in and a sharp breath out before getting up and walking away. Cecilia just stared at the lamp that hung from the ceiling and unconsciously grabbed his wrist as he walked by. Frozen stiff, he simply let his hand hang on the handle of the door until she let go, not wasting any energy to look at her.

“You decide to toss me aside when it’s convenient for you…”

A shame-forged spear penetrated his weary heart.

“That was a part of our agreement; you could have done the exact same, whenever you wanted.”

“But what do I do with these feelings I have? I can’t simply toss them in the wind and never see them again; they’ll remain in my heart for as long as I have one. You have hope and a lover in far away lands, but what do I have?”

A cold silence radiated from the caravan, infusing Pinocchio’s cogs with a sickening sloth. His wheels spun with a spark of surprise when he saw Cecilia wrap her arms around Adone from behind, nestling her face into his shoulder.

“Why is it that you’re ending this arrangement in the first place? Have you gone mad as well? We’re prisoners here; everyone who works for Mangiafuoco is a prisoner.”

She distanced herself before saying, “We’ll never leave, and you’ll never see your precious true love.”

A cavernous sigh, dark and heavy, softy escaped his lungs.

“... I just decided that it was the right thing to do.”

Sharp laughter bursted from the caravan. Cecilia tried to subdue her laugh with a hand over her smile while Adone fondled the door handle, eager to leave as soon as possible. But all the nerves in his hand froze as he saw an animal fire slip out of the cracks of her laughing fit.

“Right? Since when have you done the right thing? Since when do we do the right thing? There’s no difference between right and wrong! Only what we do and what we don’t do. That’s the way of the marionette; we do what we’re ordered to do. Being sent out to assassinate and torture people for the sake of Mangiafuoco’s financial prosperity isn’t exactly morally right either. Our hands are stained with blood and you bring up what is right and wrong? You really are fit to play the harlequin; you can make the world laugh with that joke if they understood our pain! But no, we understand each other's pain more than anyone in the world! Might as well take advantage of what little freedom we have in this hell and enjoy ourselves, no?”

The woman tenderly wrapped her fingers around his wrist and lifted it to eye level, leaning in to steal a deep kiss whilst caressing his long black hair with the other hand. With an annoyed groan, Adone ripped her off of him and grabbed her shoulders once again, looking deeply into her emerald eyes.

“Why would I use my little sliver of my freedom to torture myself by entertaining your desperation?”

Her fingers slowly drew a line from his shoulders to his wrists, making them traverse every bump of his musculature. She gently tilted his arm and placed her lips on the rows of faded scars on his wrist as her warm breath perfumed them.

“Why torture yourself with hope?” she began. “Let’s just make our own heaven in this hell and be happy on our own terms. You know that there is no way out, so just accept it as quickly and possible and be happy. Be with me.”

“I need you to stop pushing this onto me; I can’t reciprocate your feelings. I’m just not that kind of person, okay?”

“What are you then? A dreamer? Someone who hurts themselves to make them feel better about things they have no control over? You don’t even have proof of her; you have nothing! You could be making it all up for all I know! You being a knight. Having a secret relationship with some king’s daughter and then getting caught and captured by Mangiafuoco. You don’t even know the name of your king or the kingdom you protected. Hell, you don’t even know your true name! Your precious little Celeste would probably be happier without your mediocre self! You’re just a burden in her spoiled life.”

Consumed by blind rage, he flings her towards her bed, making her back hit the hard wooden corner of it. He ripped the door open with the same ferocity.

“This is the last time I’m ever entering this dungeon of yours. Don’t expect me to be lured in by your poisonous persuasions again. You have so many others to sink your fangs into. Oh wait, you already do. So stop crying over a broken toy that was never even yours in the first place.”

The way he slammed the door echoed the frustration of a hundred red nights condensed into one thunderclap. A cold, black emptiness swelled up inside of her and swallowed the warmth of the orange lights in her caravan room. Her world became one hundred degrees colder, freezing the sweet flow of life rushing through, transforming every stream of vigor into a bolt of lightning eviscerating her ghost. Ravaged by a wicked storm, all her mistakes rebuked her tenfold in the form of an all-consuming, all-powerful yet invisible pain which conquered her entire being. An ocean of choices she was forced to make and she consciously made crashed onto her heart, ripping it to shreds between the tides of her passions.

Eyes glazed with tears and a voice lacerated with grief, Cecilia stared through the prison-like caravan, unconsciously longing for the stars ensconced in the ether. The wrath of a thousand suns sweltered in her incandescent ghost, lecturing her in a language painfully familiar. With her conscience pulverized by the violence of her spirits educated by the cruelty of her position, all she could do was breathe in and out, in and out. Somewhere in the land of shattered dreams and broken hopes, the only thing she truly understood was her love for the harlequin which was the one thing she never wished to lose after losing so much. She only understood the purity and immutable truth of her love when it was lost for good and knowing that, she laughed. With a sweet voice of broken shards of iridescent glass, she wept.