“Pick a card,” it cried out. There was a petulant quality to the voice, like a child that had never grown up. So it went, day after day. The circus came to town, once, and never left.
The laughter, high-pitched and incessant, was worse. If he had ever had a sense of humor, it was gone now, worn down by years of this torture.
He kept peddling, kept performing. Even when it closed the lid on his box, submerging him in darkness. He didn’t want to make it angry again.