Free Imperfections by Bradley Somer

off to a clutch of girls at a bowling game. Before Leonard could say anything, Auntie Maggie was on us.
    â€œLet’s get a picture of you guys,” she said and dragged us toward a photo booth.
    â€œI want to play Rampage , though.” For all his newfound toughness, Leonard sounded very close to whining.
    â€œCome on, you’ll look back at this picture in twenty years and laugh,” Auntie Maggie said. “Trust me on this.”
    I didn’t have that much time. I would fall one year and four limbs short of Auntie Maggie’s prediction. Not knowing this then, I trusted her.
    I went along, my feelings torn between Auntie Maggie and Leonard, wanting to get a picture but wanting to be cool too. The cooler I could be, the more kids would come to my eleventh birthday.
    Just as I finished that thought, Leonard and I were stuffed into the photo booth.
    I could hear Auntie Maggie dropping coins in a slot. Two dollars for four photos. The booth was cramped. The backdrop was red and white vertically striped fabric.
    â€œThere, now you boys smile,” Auntie Maggie told us, reaching up and dropping the booth’s curtain behind us with a wet sound. The flashbulb fired.
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    It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the dim tent interior. I stood there dumbly next to Leonard. I could hear the carnie breathing close behind us, the rusty nail scraping quietly against his teeth as he shifted it slowly in his mouth. There were other people in the tent—some big, adult bodies moving around in the shadows. Their murmurings were hushed and seemed to pause for a moment when we entered, as if we were expected but had arrived an hour early. Outside, the noises of the midway were muted to the point of being distant screams in the darkness.
    Somewhere in the dark came the tinny sound of an organ grinder churning out a variable speed version of “The Entertainer.” The air was thick with a distinctly male smell, the musty smell emanating from the straw-covered ground, cigarette smoke, body odour and a sharp tinge from booze-soaked breath.
    As my eyes adjusted, they were drawn to a series of dim cones of light, areas spotlit by weak overhead lamps. The milling shadows of people crowded the perimeter of each area. The crowd moved slowly, in a predatorial circle.
    â€œFeel free to take a look around, boys,” the carnie growled from close behind us. If a voice could leer, his did. “I’ll be around if’n you want to be talkin’ to me about anythin’, but, in the span, take in these marvels of nature.”
    â€œCome on.” Leonard grabbed my hand and led me to one of the spotlit areas.
    We wove our way through the bodies to the crowd gathered around the base of one watery pool of yellow light. We worked our way through the cluster of towering people. There was a constant stream of mumbling and the occasional subdued laugh and snicker.
    We stopped at a sign that read: The Mighty Mite. The World’s Smallest Man .
    Beneath the light, behind a low, handprint-smeared Plexiglas wall, was the Mighty Mite. He was about half as tall as me. He was shirtless. His tiny torso was top-lit by the spotlight, accentuating the frail fingers of ribs wrapped around his chest.
    The Might Mite, a primordial dwarf, one of a hundred in the world, was two feet tall and weighed twenty-one pounds. He had a severe overbite, a cone-shaped face ending in the point of his nose and a presence that likely instigated every pixie legend in the world.
    He sat at a tiny table playing solitaire, his bird bones manipulating a deck of cards which seemed as big as a book in his stunted fingers. A cigarette smouldered in an ashtray on the table, giving a blue haze to the air in the enclosure. A small black-and-white television set sat at one end of the table, playing a fuzzy soap opera.
    Occasionally, the Mighty Mite glanced at the television set, then focused on his card game again.
    â€œUgly little