Circus of Silence

Piano Player

~*~

"Better run," says the ticket-taker. His tone is flat.

Like he's seen this a million times before.

"Better run," he tells you.

You run.

~*~

          The tents were faded as though they'd seen the sun of a thousand summers. All of them, radiating out from the central Carousel, were of a dull, muted red and striped with the shade of buttermilk. Old, but not grossly so. There were no signs of mildew, no bug-eaten holes or stains of dirt or anything else a circus could throw at it. The Circus Everlasting withstood the test of time, and Rosalind Maybrush couldn't help but marvel.

"Which one is the zoo tent?" she asked her grandmother as they cut between two tents. The soft wind brushed the sheet of fabric against her skirt, sliding across like a reed would a violin. A sad song for a sad day, thought Rosalind as she wiped a tear from her chin.

She was wearing mourner's black in the hamlet of spring and summer. A quiet rain was breaking through the bleak, grey sky. Her mother had departed her! Her mother had died. But for a moment, just a moment, the circus had made her forget. It was beautiful, magical that way, she supposed. Though it could not take her guilt away.

Her mother had departed her... and all memories of her passing had left in a blur.

Rosalind's grandmother looked over at her, ratty silver hair falling over her shoulder. Her pale eyes glinted in the failing sun. She pointed a knobby knuckle up ahead, grinning through missing teeth. "Stripes has problems sleeping," she explained, "the music of the carousel calms him."

"He's awake now, grandmother?"

The old woman nodded. "Shula never fails." Her grandmother pinched the pinstriped prints, and led Rosalind into the Repaire de la belle bête. The lair of the handsome beast.

       She wasn't exaggerating.

She knew her grandmother, through she fabricated careful illusions and manipulated the mind, was not a liar- but she found herself amazed at the beauty of the beast before them. She let the curtain fall behind her, the canvas cloth caressing her skirts as it drooped and reverted back to its default position. Stripes was awake, padding precociously across the floor of his pen, his paws clean and perfectly formed. The stripes that gave him his name were brushed perfectly, glimmering in the light of their lanterns. The yellow flames mingled with his orange fur and his golden fur and made him look like firelight given form. Majesty incarnate. And his eyes... they seemed to fixate. They seemed to glow and glare in the dimness- to give off a light of entirely their own.

Rosalind shook back her sense. She was standing, a hair's breadth from the bars. Stripes was standing, too. The Beautiful Bengal stood on his two hind legs, his front paws pressing purposefully against Rosalind's. Golden eyes glinted. The girl gasped. A sharp note broke through the air, blinding, deafening her for a moment or two. The world disappeared in a flash of white before fading away like sleep's hold in the morning.

Stripes stumbled back onto all fours.

"Silly boy," her grandmother whispered, and then she called for Shula. She turned to Whisper, a strange urgency in her expression. "The Circus never ends- but it has no shortage of new beginnings. Go now, Rosaline, and find yours!" She practically pushed the young woman out the door.

"Farewell, fantastical beast!" she cried as the smell of fur and earth grew sweeter and saltier. As all the noise in the world was replaced by the signature song of the Carousel. The universe seemed to blur around her, her swaying and her head growing heavy on her neck. Today's hat was not particularly large or ornate- but for a moment, Rosalind was convinced she was back at home with her mother stacking books on her head to improve her posture.