Tasha K. Rookswater

“Once upon a time,” Caden said, “there was, um. There was a world.” He stood to one side of a stage that was made from boards laid across haybales. The woman running things had given him a microphone. That was it, as far as sets and equipment went. Presumably most people brought their own. Two other stages flanked his. One of them held a crew in the middle of building some sort of complicated scaffolding. On the other, a line of women in Santa hats and short skirts did a dance routine to recorded Irish music. They looked cold. There wasn’t really much of an audience for any of this. People passing by looked curiously at Caden’s stage and at the dancers, but mostly didn’t slow down. The Winter Carnival’s main shows were in the evening, Mushroom had explained. Right now was for a grab-bag of amateurs, just to have something going on so there weren’t a bunch of empty stages dragging the ambience down. The Noun had seemed miffed at that. Well. Maybe they’d surprise people. “Um,”