The Opiate, Winter Vol. 8
The Greatest Show on Earth Hailey Foglio
I
see the juggling club first, tumbling handle over body over handle over body, eventually being caught by the net below. It is too early in her act for the club to fall. I was watching a freckled boy in the front row when it happened as he chucked handfuls of popcorn at the ground, stomped the kernels into the dirt, then, turning to the patron behind him, dropped the popcorn, piece by piece, on the man’s scuffed leather shoes. Leather Shoes leaned forward and said something to the boy’s mother, who barked back at the man. The man leaned back in his seat, red-faced at what the mother had said. I wanted to be annoyed at the boy, annoyed that between breaking down the sets and scrubbing my face raw to remove hardened paint, I would also have to clean up his mess. But boys are like that sometimes. When the club catches my eye, I cringe and turn toward the highwire where Lily will now have to compensate for her mistake, recovering quickly and moving into the acrobatic portion of her performance
16.
sooner than usual. I know she will be disappointed in herself for this. She eases her right foot onto the wire behind her left, swings it out to the side, then back. The wire shakes side to side beneath her. She glances down at her feet, and maybe that’s the death sentence, a violation of a golden rule: Never, ever look at your feet. She lets the last two clubs slip from her fingers. When she falls, she reaches for the wire, misses, then drops from the sky. It’s the metal snap of the highwire support that has me charging the ring, knocking the freckled boy to the ground, spilling the last remnants of his popcorn. I hear the first few gasps of a coming sob, but I don’t look back. The net has collapsed. I shove my way through audience members now on their feet, their murmurs soft but growing louder. I process only pieces of what they say. What happ... ...that girl okay?
