Place · Book 2, Carl's Doomsday Scenario

Grimaldi's Traveling Circus

Three faded tents in a park in the ruins, a few blocks from the Belly-Rubbed Pug, walled with bones and barbed wire, garrisoned by knife-throwing skull-masked lemurs, stilt clowns, artillery giraffes, mold lions and mortar acrobats, with a calliope playing a polka at half speed. Inside the big top the performers perform for nobody, and the vine fills the centre ring. Where a stairwell appears when it is gone.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 4 — Knives from a window
• Chapter 5 — Boxes at the Pug
• Chapter 6 — Signet
• Chapter 7 — The lion's heart
• Chapter 8 — Water Lily
• Chapter 9 — Heather the Bear
• Chapter 10 — The big top
• Chapter 11 — The pitch
• Chapter 12 — Mongo holds the pyramid
• Chapter 19 — Danger Zone
• Chapter 21 — Katia
• Chapter 23 — Ten sticks of dynamite

Arc

From a lemur's knife (ch. 4) to a stairwell in a park (ch. 12): the sentries, the fortifications at dusk (ch. 6), the paper army's assault (ch. 9), the tent where the performers still perform (ch. 10) and the smell that undoes Carl.