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.
Quickly,
his head jerked up and he shook his body of anything anxious or stress
enduring. Simply sighing and stuffing the ideas of pain into a dark
space in his mind, “Yeah.. I’m alright, sorry about that..”“It’s okay to be nervous,” Carlos said. “Let me know if you get light-headed. I wanna make sure you’re going to be well and not have any avoidable issues, okay?”
Was this what children felt like?
Anxious and tense? Poor children. “Uh-huh- gotcha..” He murmured under his breath as he glanced over at the needle, Skip had done things like this many times a week for sure, but he was never at the receiving end of it.
Carlos looked at Skip. “Wanna look at that poster over there?” Carlos asked, pointing to a poster depicting Nikola Tesla standing on top of a cartoonishly beaten Thomas Edison with his arms up in triumph.
The Perfect Scientist 