Our carnival travels from town-to-town, never staying very long in any one place. The men set up the rainbow-colored tents and hammer the nails back into the cheap, tear-down stands. The wood is rotting and too full of holes to be of much practical use, but they insist on driving the metal tacks into the mildew-ridden wood anyway. After the sun sets, the vendors light the lanterns hanging from the spare nail shoved part-way into the bottom of their signs. Bathed in the eerie glow cast from the candle, they wait like everyone else for the first townspeople to show.

We don't have long to wait. They're drawn to the lanterns swinging forebodingly in the restless wind. The adults are cautious at first, especially the mothers of the young children. They grip the hands of their darlings as if they might never seen them again if they let go for so much as a second. The men are like children again, gazing in awe at the sugary candies and buttery pastries for sale, dangling deliciously from strings on the stalls.

Everyone is captivated by the spell that the vendors weave. Everyone, that is, except the children. They tug impatiently at their mothers' hands and drag their docile fathers towards the unlit section of the carnival. It is as if curiosity's hand--invisible to the parents--reaches out and beckons to them with a gnarled, twisted finger, luring them forever closer to our sideshow.

Uninterested, I pace uncomfortably in my cage for several minutes before my attention is caught by a kid near the front of the crowd. She is small, even for her age, with fingers that look underdeveloped and a forehead that bulges out above her eyes lending her the appearance of a fetus that never fully realized its potential. Wispy blonde bangs are plastered to her head and she stares forward, teetering unevenly on her thin legs, as if possessed.

Our eyes meet for a moment and I am left feeling as if Satan himself had brutally ripped my heart in half, leaving the torn and bloody shreds dripping from my chest. Her light blue eyes are translucent, almost see-through. Despite her fragile, unfinished appearance--perhaps because of it--I feel that she is the first person to ever look at me and see something other than their hate reflected back. Countless people have walked past my cage and stared in horror, or shifted their eyes away with the disgust nevertheless evident as if it was painted in crimson blood on their faces, but she is the first person to understand how it feels to be in my place.

Day after day I have been confined to this prison and put on view as if I was a painting in an art gallery, not some mutant on display. The parents are horrified by my kind, especially me with my savage, canine appearance. The night magnifies the evil glint in my yellowed pupils, making their terror all the more vivid.

Over the months I have learned to tune out their stares until they have all blended into one mocking face, taut with fear. I have trained myself not to notice the individuals, because when I see them it makes the pain all the more worse to bear. Sometimes in the early hours of the morning, while the rest of the carnival sleeps or paces the grounds fitfully, I lie awake on the floor of my cage unable to forget. I find myself thinking about the leering, maniacal face. On those nights it haunts me for hours, long after the townspeople have gone.

Her presence pulls me to the front of the cage and I pad forward on all fours. Our noses touch and she smiles, bright blue eyes shining joyfully. A deformed grin twists itself across her face ghoulishly, reminding me of a candy wrapper someone left on the ground outside my cage once. It is wrinkled and stretched unnaturally. I try to smile back, but with my lips drawn up above my long, tapered fangs I look as if I'm about to attack the child. Her father screams in alarm and jerks her away. There is a loud cracking sound, like the sound of the multicolored Fall leaves crunching beneath sneakers. I watch as her face crumples in pain, just before she falls to the ground. Her head strikes a rock and her skull tears as easily as if it is made of paper.

There is blood everywhere, running over her blond curls and down her bone-white skin. It is pale as the slice of moon I can see from my cage on the cloudless nights. Her father stands petrified over her body, unable to move. The silence is thick and impenetrable as everyone is frozen in horror over the sight of her body. Then, in a sudden surge of energy, the crowd surrounding the freak show is full of life. Amid the riot, I can see the carnival manager running towards us, waving a whip in his arms.

Nervously, I press my snout between the bars of my cage and begin to whine. The stage manager raises the whip and brings it down with a sharp snap on my nose, breaking the tough skin beneath my golden fur. I yelp painfully as blood drips from the wound, dampening the fur around my snout.

Burying my head beneath my paws, I remain motionless for a very long time. When I finally open my eyes and peek out of my cage everyone is gone. Silently crossing to the front of my cage, I stare at the murderous stone, peaking out from the ground like the tip of a giant iceberg. It looks harmless enough, except for the small drop of blood that whoever cleaned up the mess accidentally missed. I can see her there, now, before my eyes. Her head is broken and bloody, but there is the faintest trace of a smile on her lips.

My eyes are torn from the scene by an all-too-familiar sound. Someone is prying the bent, reused nails out of the rotten wood of one of the stalls. I can't believe that they are taking down the carnival already. We've never left this quickly before. I know it's because of the girl; because of me.

I know no matter how far I run I will not escape her. It is as if her death was the silent agreement that sealed the unity of our souls forever, until my bones are the only souvenirs of my painful pilgrimage upon this earth. Our meeting was not by chance. She was meant to be my bride, the only monster capable of loving a dog-boy as loathsome as myself.