Carlos hadn’t been to a circus in years – not since he was little. But there had been a raffle at work and Carlos had won a coupon for a free ticket. He kinda hoped that his brother and/or his dad were in town so he could invite them to go with him.
Carlos made his way to the ticket office that was set up, standing in the line with his coupon as he looked at everything around him. Some things were different than what he remembered or imagined a circus to be like, but not everything could be a dated cliche trope he supposed.
Once at the ticket office he smiled and offered the coupon. “Hey… this any good?” he asked in a joking manner.
It was a poor joke at best, the ticket manager didn’t seem to be even vaguely entertained by it and simply rolled his tired dark eyes at the man and punched a discounted ticket. His hands were wrinkled and scared like he never rested a day in his life, after the ripe age of eighteen. He snatched the coupon and tossed it into a drawer beside the pinched ticket, which gleamed like treasure beneath the flashing lights of his stand.
Finally being handed the ticket through awkward groans of misery and sounds of self loathing, the man spoke in a low and gruff tone that urged Carlos along like he was a straggler.
“Get on with it, city man.” He growled as he waved his frail hand in a dismissive manner, and then at the family of four behind Carlos to proceed.
Carlos blinked. Well, that was a great way to greet someone. Carlos reasoned that the man was probably having an off day today.
So Carlos just smiled at him and nodded. “Thank you. Have a good day,” he said and started to walk away from the booth.
Carlos looked at the ticket to determine where his seat was. It seemed like it was pretty high up – he didn’t really expect anything else from a raffled ticket coupon – so he located the section and started to climb.
The seating wasn’t as tight fitting as one would have expected in a traveling act like this, his seat was directly at the balcony for a straight down view of the show happening two stories below. There was a ring of sand along with a red white and gold striped tent, where flamethrowers stood and juggled flaming bottles of wine next to a pair of albino tigers as they roared. It was certainly an opener to behold, as the ring leader rambled on about how dangerous and mysterious his show was girls in skin tight suits balanced on globes and danced.
Circus’ were always supposed to be extra but this was madness, you couldn’t focus on one thing including the speech of the ring leader. Though as the man talked, he suddenly gestured far above the ground to a pair of diving boards that were placed nearly next to Carlos where a man stood on one and a woman to the other. They were both dressed in tight fitting glittery leotards and wore greatly exaggerated makeup, the spotlight hit them like a godly ray of which they basked in.
Carlos watched and clapped along with the crowd. There was plenty for him to look at, and he was especially interested in the hardware that the trapezists used. It all looked delicate and Carlos knew that everything would have a purpose. He couldn’t wait to see how the acrobats would interact with everything.
Again, he wished his dad and brother were here. He wanted so much to share this with them.
The Perfect Scientist 