8 April

Day 8 (2)

'An army major steals intelligence and hides it inside a circus tent.'

A prompt from the excellent @magicrealismbot on Twitter. A bit surreal

"It's dreadful, the underfunding of the military these days," the major says, and gestures to the canvas, striped in blood, gaudy with gold, on top of it all, a clown's face.

He whispers, and he leans in close:"My comrades died, their guns spliced into bananas, the boots into clown shoes. No one respects death by following orders anymore."

The elephants are long gone, lions too, only their trainers stayed, aimlessly cracking whips at thin air, (and that's no bloody use at doing tricks, bowing and scraping, putting a meal on the table, getting new ideas, a way out of this problem).

"Because of the cutbacks", the major says, his uniform looking shabby or pretend
"I've had to reduce right back to the bare bones..".He gestures at the lions' empty cages

"You're right, I've got intelligence, and intelligence is what I'm going to show you."

You expect filing cabinets bursting with the unexpected , hiding conspiracies in plain sight, one drawer opening at a time, documents in a neat row, poking their labels out like kids tucked up in bed. Instead there's this, a thin, drawn man, wearing a faded trapezist's leotard standing in the corner of the thing.

"Am I a civil servant?" he asks
"Am I a circus performer?", he asks again
"I never quite remember"

And he holds in his hand a flyer or a program and listed in it ,you'd think were all the names and packdrills and in it the statistics and in it illustrations of this latest show or war or some damn thing that would give you information. But when you look, there's nothing, a perfect blank that your eyes will fill with tiny little dots, as nature hates a vacuum.

And you'll nod and say you understand and walk, in full possession of the facts, through the empty space, the no press and no audience , where high wire acts have long since, dared and fallen, out to where the major shakes your hand.

"Good luck", he says, "So long. We work with what we've got. Stealing is just possession, and possession is keeping, so I'm keeping guessing".

And you see him on the news, and he's saying the same, but in a loud, brash voice, with an invisible top hat, an invisible cape. And the thing is, people believe him, and the thing is, tickets are bought, and the thing is, there's a show.

And I'm telling this to you because you'll understand. Intelligence is what you think you know and others don't. Intelligence is what you think you have and others haven't. Ranks and uniform, shtick and costume, the army and the circus: better women than you and I have waited, or maybe better women than you and I have better occupations to be getting on with .