thumbleweed news [short story #c]

Following the previous thumbleweed news, here is a third short story, called #c for the time being. There are a few days left for those who want to contribute to this series!

X woke up with a terrible hang over. Thinking of last night performance, he was proud himself. He is an equilibrist and has been lucky enough to perform at the biggest collaborative circus show in France. He has never seen so many talented and attractive people performing together and this is what he has been dreaming about. 

X was about to get a cup of water and noticed that his right thumb was gone and, wrapped. ‘This must be a horrible dream.’ he thought. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. He tried to remember what happened but all he could remember were some brief moments. After the show, there was a big party to celebrate the last performance. He had a great time till Tim started a fight again. Tim (a lion tamer) was always jealous of X’s talent. Tim got aggressive and threatened X with his lions. ‘His lion took my thumb?’ X got so furious at Tim then, he remembered the moment with Bella. Bella has been working on a hand disappearing magic. Yes, he was drunken enough to volunteer himself for her working magic. She brought an axe to pretend cut his hand. ‘So… my thumb got cut for real?’ He should’ve took Jimmy’s advice, ‘Never volunteer yourself to working magic.’ Last night Jimmy was too busy impressing Liz who was very popular and snobby. X was keen on Liz’s friend, Cloe, secretively. One moment, all of them were sitting at the same table and Liz whispered X that Cloe fascinated a snake show very much. Luckily (?) a group of Indian magicians was sitting at the next table. Yes, he remembered reaching out himself to those snakes for one simple purpose. 

‘My thumb must be beaten and poisoned?’ 

He got confused with these slices of memory and none of them gave him clear reason why he lost his thumb. He got out of his room and found Jimmy and Kev. 

Both looked at X worried. “How are you feeling? We were so afraid that we might lose you. You’ve been in a bed for four days.” Jimmy said. The most surprising question was asked by Kev, “So, what happened, X? How did you end up in the 5th district?” When a milkman found X next morning in the 5th district, his thumb was brutally smashed and even his bone. When he was brought to a surgeon, there was no other option except cutting his thumb. They talked to everyone and tried to find any clue. No one seems to know exactly what happened that night rather most of them couldn’t remember. 

After that, X, Jimmy and Kev traveled around countryside and performed together. After a year and half, that night seemed to be almost forgotten till one morning X read a small article. It was about the new invention of a punch press machine and there was a photo of an inventor, Cloe, smiling beautifully. One of feature caught his eyes, ‘Warning : The maximum pressure is enough to crush human hand.‘