Under The Tent Top (COMPLETED)

Seventeen

"You'd deserve something like this." Rene nudged.

I grinned brightly. "Well. Better hurry and back so we get there sooner!"

~*~

Manuel must have driven faster than I had ever witness him drive. The trailers behind him tried their best to keep up. All effort was worth the rush for we had only spent an hour on the road.

The sun was barely at its peak.

As the crew set up, Manuel and I gingerly knocked on the ring leader's door. When the door opened, Samil had seemed like a different man. His face was pale, his eyes blood shot and his hand covered his mouth.

"What?!" He shouted before dry heaving.

"I think it would be an interesting idea to take some performers to promote the show this afternoon?" Manuel stated.

Samil waved us away. "Fine. Just leave!"

Loud hacks and hurls were heard from inside. Outside, we chuckled.

"I should give him more to drink more often!"

A loud cackle escaped me.

Soon I found myself surrounded by Manuel, Rene, Dandra, Lacy and Marius. Mirna laughed at the top of the trail steps, waving us out as if her children had gone to school. I smiled back, watching The White Tent top shrink into the horizon - and I ran faster.

We had reached the edge of the small city we stationed outside of. The buildings seemed less damaged than most. A few side patrollers stood at the edges of the road.

"Morning," One man called out to us, his eyes gazing Dandra in her 3'8" frame. "What is your purpose here?"

Dandra waved in obnoxious showmanship. "We are from The White Top Circus! We've come to promote our show tonight!"

Another guard approached us. "Aren't you the one who sings?" She asked me.

I bowed. "The Nightingale!"

Beside me Rene chuckled.

"Yes, I remember you folks! We'll go on in then!" The guard gestured for her colleagues to clear a path. "We'll see you tonight!"

My friends and I continued out happy pace down the road with little intention to do anymore presenting.

"Its a miracle to see that people are still willing to be entertained." Lacey stated.

"It's not a bad thing." Manuel replied. "I think it's almost uplifting, the music and the thrill. The idea that we never lost our cheer, despite what we do to each other."

"It's the small things that we do to help each other, you know?" Rene said pulling out a small box of matches from her pocket.

I watched as she walked over to a man leaning against the wall of a building. His face dirty, the dust outlining the divots on his cheek where fat should have been. Rene placed the matches beside him as Manuel walked over pulling a can of soup from his small duffle bag.

"So that's what the bag was for." Lacey nodded.

I grinned proudly at my companions.

~*~

We spent the first half of the afternoon emptying the bag Manuel brought. Smiles were given back in return to all those we had met and the stares in the tent had been nothing compared to those smiles.

When we had finished, we found ourselves sitting on the bent fences and benches of an abandoned park. A few shelter seekers slept under the trees and bridges, while we gazed out into what was left of the trees.

"Imagine seeing this before the East hit us." I whispered.

Dandra reaches for my hand and squeezed.

"It would have been amazing..." Lacey replied.

The grass was brown, the dirt layered the cobble path, and what I assumed was a once bright blue creek was now black. There were no flowers, no birds, or soft breeze. All that was left was the dark remains of a lonely garden fence and the tilted concrete benches. The large houses around the parameter were abandoned and forgotten. Windows we're shattered or bordered up. Locked up, in desperate attempt to protect their interior from the touch of war.

"Maybe one day we'll be able to see something like this again. Something not so dark. Maybe one day we'll all be able to live in houses like these." Marius whispered.

I turned to him, my face slightly laced with sadness. "Maybe..."

Yet, I knew that day would never come.