Pantomime by Laura Lam - Sample Chapters

here are people unlike you or I. In some way, these men and women are unique to any others. They come from all over the world just to show you their extraordinary bodies. Some you may find beautiful. Others you may find repulsive. Are they blessed? Are they cursed? You decide.”

She held back the cloth door so that we could shuffle in. This section of the tent was darker, and somehow colder. It did not smell of animals, but dust and stale human sweat. I wrapped my arms about myself.

The woman snapped her fingers and the glass globes brightened. In a large circle men and women stood, or sat upon stools. Small plaques were hammered into the ground in front of them. Like the others, I gawked.

The middle-aged red-haired woman nearest to me looked like anyone’s mother, aside from the fact that she had a bushy moustache and beard. She wore a long dress with a flowered print and an apron to heighten the oddness of her ginger beard. Her blue eyes crinkled at me and I averted my gaze. I raised a hand to my still-smooth cheek and wondered if I would ever sprout hair.

“Bethany here was a perfectly normal girl from the village of Rionan, but when she entered her blossoming time, she ended up growing a beard as well as breasts!” our gypsy guide said.

The strongman from the circus act had a pile of wooden planks, and he picked one up and snapped it as if it were sugar glass.