Tightrope

Tightrope

I knew I was going to die. I knew from the minute they threw a sack over my head and pulled the string so tight that shapes and colours danced brazenly across my eyelids. I knew when I gained consciousness and realised that I had been changed into a tight fitting corset and a tutu, black as a body of a handgun. I knew when a stout and portly man grinned and me, said “showtime”, and led me inside a large tent with a knife pressed firmly on my back. I could feel the cold metal of the knife and it seemed to whisper silence to my vocal chords and swiftness to my feet. 

I was faced with a ladder and I could barely see the top of it. The man pressed the gun deeper into my spine and whispered into my ear,

“Climb it.”

His words echoed in my ears and I knew that my freedom had been lost. I climbed the ladder mechanically. I could not think, my thoughts would not keep still and instead were dancing with each other, encircling one another, coiling their bodies, holding each other so tightly that they were intertwined into one and I couldn’t distinguish between them.

When I reached the top, in front of me was a long rope, joined by a wooden platform either side. As my thoughts ground to a halt and began to separate, I realised I was in a circus tent and that I was expected to walk that rope for a crowd who could see the obvious bewilderment and horror etched on my face and just didn’t care. I was a coerced performer and more so, under the rope, there was no safety net. Just black death.

I had heard the rumours of girls being captured and made to perform in daring circus acts that no person would agree to out of their own free will. I thought these illegal operations were just urban myths, a story envisioned by a father that is used to warn his child not to trust strangers. A one time occurrence that now everyone believes happens in every city, at every waking moment. I, like many other people, believed it was something that would not happen to me, not ever. I looked behind me and saw a man at the bottom of the ladder, strong and tall and intimating, smiling up at me, twirling the hilt of the knife in his hand like a ballet dancer. I knew the only direction in which I could advance was forward.

As a placed one foot tentatively on the rope, the crowd shrieked in response, clapping their hands, encouraging me to advance. I was not scared of dying, but of being dead. The image of the afterlife slowly crept into my thoughts and I began to wonder, was there a Heaven?  Moreover, was I unsullied enough to enter it? For the first time in my life, I feared the eternal heat of Hell. Perhaps if I had attended Church regularly and read the Bible and believed entirely within my heart that there was a God, I would have not afraid of death, although I doubt this to be true. With flames flickering in my mind, I planted two feet firmly upon the rope.

Only seconds later, I began the wobble. The crowd let out a grown of disappointment. They had not paid good money to see me fall before the tension was built and the chance of me reaching the other side was slim, but possible. I flung my arms back, as if I was a bird in flight, and took small, tentative steps towards the centre of the rope, my toes clutching it tight. I focused on what was in front of me, the audience, adults and children alike, all watching me with a countenance of sadistic pleasure. They all looked the same to me, as if their bodies were all moulded from the same callous clay. I couldn’t distinguish one face from another and before long, they all seemed cast together and took the shape of one singular form, that of a monster, with dark, sunken eyes, void of all empathy and a prominent and open mouth, big enough to swallow a human alive. The stench of hatred emitted from them and it smelt of singed human flesh. 

Lights… an array of lights blinded me. I nearly lost my balance. The air was thick with excitement and I felt as if I could grab hold of it. The shock began to wear off and I began to feel reality. I started to cry. The audience knew not how to react. They weren’t sure if they were supposed to be disgusted by my weakness or delighted by it and they whispered to each other for guidance and the whole tent was filled with an indistinguishable noise that sounded like the art of conspiracy. I considered just giving up and allowing myself to fall, just to escape the humiliation and the fiery dread that existed deep inside my chest about what would happen if I did survive, what would they do to me then? They would not let me go, I knew that much. In all probability, they would make me repeat the ordeal, or even put me through something worse. The thought of what was to come pierced my skull like a headache and it burned and scorched and blistered and I realised that this, where I was now, was Hell. My foot slid off the rope…

And as I stumbled off the high wire and fell to my death, the last thing I saw were their faces, who laughed and laughed at my descent. Their features contorted into a grotesque mask, in such a way they failed to look human.