Hello, my name is Srah Whte and you may be able to tell that I’m having a baby. I know that may not sound anything out of the ordinary, but trust me, there is nothing ordinary about this baby-to-be.

My husband and I have wanted a child for a long time, but it just didn’t seem as if it would happen. We tried just about everything that the professionals told us to do as well as many weird suggestions from well-intended friends and acquaintances, from standing on my head to both of us trying food we would not otherwise partaken of.
My husband and I have both been prodded and poked and subjected to many an invasive procedure, and being of a very modest nature, I found this particularly stressful. We were put on timetables and temperature checks, periods of abstinence followed by ceaseless activity. We no longer looked romantically at each other as our loving other half, but rather, as two components of a baby-making machine.
It wasn’t meant to be this difficult! Our friends seemed to have so effortlessly managed to breed and their success, coupled with their generous, if useless, advice just caused a wedge to be driven between us. I slowly drifted away from my friends and withdrew into the sorrow of my unfulfilled maternal longings.

And then the circus came to town, and I begged my husband to go just to break the monotony our lives had become. It was unlike any circus I have heard of. It was billed as a Night Circus and it had no animal acts, or clowns or any of the usual acts one comes to expect of a circus and was not open to children. Instead, it comprised a number of small tents, each with a single word above the tent flap. There was “Pleasure”, “Prosperity”, “Health”, “Advancement”, “Prowess”, “Success” and “Fulfilment”.

I felt a small frisson of excitement run up and down my spine. My husband wanted to visit the Pleasure tent, but I felt strangely drawn to the tent labelled Fulfilment. As we were more and more tending to do in our lives, we decided to visit our respective tents separately and as he disappeared into his chosen tent, I turned and headed towards Fulfilment.
As I stood outside the tent, my hand of the flap, I felt a calling – an insistent voice that beckoned me in. When I entered, I nearly fell in surprise, for inside the tent was whole forest, lush and green and sweet smelling, lit by a full moon and glittering with insects carrying their own lights in their tails. It was so astoundingly beautiful that I could hardly breathe. As I walked, I thought that this tent would have been better named “The Garden of Earthly Delights” as it more aptly described what I was seeing than fulfilment. While it was beautiful, my womb was still unfilled and therein lay my unfulfillment.
I continued walking, everywhere I looked my eyes discovered new wonders, new things to delight my eyes, my ears, my touch as I brushed my hands along smooth tree trunks or feathery flowers offering their scented petals to night visiting visitors. I felt lost but not frightened. More alive in this unreal world than that on the other side of the tent flap.
I then came to a clearing in the centre of which was a table laid out with the most incredible food I have ever seen. It looked like food from my world, as I now felt I was in a world other than my own, only better. The colours were brighter, the dishes more pleasing and the aromas more tantalising than I had ever known. I started to eat, to savour each morsel, to roll it around my mouth, to lick and nibble, to suck the fruits until their sweet juice ran down my chin. I drank wine that tingled on my tongue and greedily reached for more. I indulged in shameless gluttony and ate and drank until I could eat no more.
And I grew sleepy after my repast. I saw a giant bed, which I would have sworn was not there before I grew sleepy, but I had come to accept that this world had its own rules and rhythms. I lay down and fell into the most blissful sleep I had in years. I half awoke to the warmth of someone pressing their body to mine. I didn’t question what had happened to my clothes, nor did I question what happened next with the stranger in my bed. I could not quite see him clearly – it was as if each time I looked at his face my sight would slip away and so he remained mysterious. It had been so long since lovemaking had just been for pleasure and wholeheartedly engaged in our strange, dream-like intimacy.

When I awoke, I was standing outside the tent, still with my hand on the tent flap. What had happened? Had I even entered the tent? Had I imagined that strange, delicious world? My watch said that only 5 minutes had passed but I had been inside for hours.

As I turned to leave, a strange feeling came over me. I realised that the feeling of loss and disappointment that was ever constant in me was gone. I felt strangely fulfilled.
Neither my husband nor I talked about what had happened that night.

A month later a miracle happened. I discovered that I was pregnant. Both my husband and I were overjoyed, but my joy was tempered with guilt, for this baby surely was the outcome of my strange night at the circus. I had to admit to my husband what I had done. He seemed very shocked but not angry with me. In fact, he seemed excited as he told me about what happened to him in his tent named Pleasure. He said he woke up in bed with a naked woman he could not quite see, and they made love. When he awoke, he was standing outside his tent as if he hadn’t even entered it.

So, you see, this is a very special baby, and this baby is ours!
Of the Night Circus, I have no more information. It has never returned to set up its peculiar tents, but then again, we have no further need to visit it.