The Toaster Juggling Circus Performer
By Morgan Glass


Childhood
It is October 31st and he is six years old when a toothless salesman comes to his door. He is selling toasters door to door for a “very very low price,” he says, and claims that these toasters are unique. They do come in several colors and patterns, after all, and would normally cost anyone “an absolute fortune.” The boy’s mother is easily convinced, and buys seven toasters from the toothless salesman. She regreted it later that day, but to the future Toaster Juggling Circus Performer’s delight, she keep s them instead of throwing them out. He can juggle all seven with ease before his seventh birthday.

Age 17
The Toaster Juggling Circus Performer leaves home and joins a travelling circus where he meets a snake-loving girl who wears thick green make-up and little else. The next year, they are married. Their wedding day is the first and last time he sees her without her make-up. He decides he prefers when she wears it.

Years Later
The Toaster Juggling Circus Performer does not witness the birth of his daughter. He waits in the hall until it is over, practicing his routine. His wife is too drugged to know he’s not there. When he sees his little daughter for the very first time he is glad she does not look like his wife. But then again, she does not look much like the Toaster Juggling Circus Performer either. Maybe that is best, he thinks.

Rehearsal
It is the third day of rehearsal, and the Toaster Juggling Circus Performer is not practicing. Instead, he watches a young, blond girl practice her balancing act on a wire. She is the daughter of the Lion Tamer, and has been making eyes at him for several days. The Toaster Juggling Circus Performer does not care that his wife, the Snake Charmer, hates this girl. His wife hates every woman who is both younger and prettier than she. He stares a little longer before practicing his own routine. He is able to juggle ten toasters now.

Tuesday
The Toaster Juggling Circus Performer is irritated. A circus employee in a polar bear costume is distracting his little daughter. The Toaster Juggling Circus Performer thinks she should be practicing her knife throwing. She must be able to throw all seven daggers past an audience member before this Saturday and has not yet managed to get the seventh dagger above the spot that marks the head.

Wednesday
The body of a man in a white bear costume is found in a park behind where a circus has just been disassembled. A tightly wrapped electrical cord is found around his neck.

Purchase
Two days later, the Toaster Juggling Circus Performer goes to see his custom toaster maker. He is a little old man with very few customers, but many gold teeth and who never asks many questions.
“I need a very special toaster.” said the Toaster Juggling Circus Performer. “One as heavy as a brick with enough power to burn its toast black in an instant.”
“Every toaster you commission is a very special toaster, sir,” said the custom toaster maker as he grinned a wide, gold-toothed smile.
“This one is particularly important,” said the Toaster Juggling Circus Performer.
“Yes, sir,” said the custom toaster maker. And so, he made it.

Delivery
It is February 14th and a package arrives for the Toaster Juggling Circus Performer. It is wrapped in fine red and gold paper. The wife takes it from the delivery man and eyes it suspiciously. She suspects it is a present from the young blond daughter of the Lion Tamer, and resolves to loosen the high-wire before the girl’s next performance.

Death at the Circus
The Toaster Juggling Circus Performer already knows his wife’s plan before the show begins on that Saturday, but he does nothing to stop it. He waits until she has gone back to their trailer to do anything at all.
The Toaster Juggling Circus Performer’s wife is found dead between the third and fourth act, in her bathtub with a very heavy toaster dropped between her feet. But the show must go on and a young girl dies; hitting the ground before the first ambulance arrives.

Later
When the travelling circus gains a bad reputation, the Toaster Juggling Circus Performer takes his daughter and goes to Eastern Europe, where they became famous for his two dozen toaster juggling act and her ever improving knife throwing tricks.

Death: The One He Always Wanted
The Toaster Juggling Circus Performer soaks his feet after the day’s fifth performance. His daughter is in the kitchen, making him tea. She is seventeen and her eyes glow like diamonds. The Toaster Juggling Circus Performer watches her, and observes that she still does not resemble him or her mother, but rather a man he once knew in a polar bear costume.
It doesn’t matter, he thinks to himself, as she hands him the tea. When he looks up from his cup she is holding a toaster. This one is blue and yellow; an older one that his mother bought many years ago and, still, it works like new. The Toaster Juggling Circus Performer’s daughter smiles at him with an unfriendly smile. She lets her father finish his tea before dropping the toaster between his feet.


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Morgan Glass is a twenty-four year old from Arlington, Texas, currently studying Creative Writing and Filmmaking at CU Boulder. Glass enjoys drinking coffee, hanging out in cemeteries with a Bolex, and fervently believes that if you find a book inside a hollowed out headstone in a graveyard, you should leave it there because it gives the ghosts something to read.