'Ladies and gentlemen! Everyone! Step right up and see the show! You shall never regret! The most beautiful exotic dancers! The funniest elephant of all time! The dancing wolves! The most hilarious clowns you will ever see!'
'And don't forget the mimes! They are here all the time!' a clown interrupted.
'That's right! This is our youngest clown, Tickles! And this is our French mime Lucy! Are you in a box, Lucy?' the Host continued.
The girl wearing black and white raised her hands showing people there were walls around her. She made a desperate face as if she wanted to escape but she couldn't. And the musicians started to play louder. The music was bizarre and almost painful. Children, women, men were entering the circus.
'See Mickey the scariest lion! Leonidia, the woman who can perform the most dangerous trapeze act of all time! Step right up, my friends! The experience we offer isn't something that you shall forget!'
Leonidia. From her little dressing room in that circus truck she heard him curse her. She heard him wishing she'd die. Now he says that she can do the most dangerous trapeze act of all time. Mister Host, sir. She knew it was her last act. The circus has gone bankrupt since a new movie theatre opened nearby. No one wants to see the same old acts over and over again. Her eyes were so teary. One by one they were falling down her cheeks.
Smile, damn it. This is what I chose.
So she put another layer of make-up to cover that spoiled one. Spoiled by tears. Leonidia kept smiling to her self. She did it while performing, before the performance. But not after. After the performance she'd wash her mask off and become Patricia. It was her real name. She was Patricia only once a day and only to herself. All the rest knew her as Leonidia. The trapeze artist.
What's next? The circus was my home.
She put on her diamond-like necklace that always glittered in the lights as she was performing. She looked at her reflection in the mirror.
Should I become a maid or something. Leonidia the maid.
She smiled to herself ironically and looked left. It was almost time.
I've always been alone. Maybe I should find a man that I could marry. Then again, would I ever find such a man? I'd most likely end up in the streets. And I don't like family life. I am just traveler. Maybe I should join the Gypsies? They live nearby anyway. Hah. I;d end up with 10 children and HIV. Telling some naive girls the future: Aiii seeee eevill things awaiting you in yourrr futurrree, dearrry. BEWARRE of ze Gypsiee currrse! I crack myself up!
She laughed out.
'Leonidia! 3 minutes!' said Tickles the clown
'Yes, I am ready Tickles.'
That clown sure doesn't sound like a clown anymore.
'We're throwing an after party. We've got all the rum you can drink.'
'Thanks, Tickles. See you after the show.'
'I love you, Leonidia.'
Naive twit.
'We're circus people. We are family. But we don't love.' She said, putting a white, 15 meter scarf around herself. It's a part of her act.
I always hate my life while I put this around me.
'Shall I help you, Patricia?'
'You shall go, John.'
He left. She told him off once again. This talk paradoxically gave her energy to go through her act. See the Host and even smile at him.
'How I hate him' she said through her teeth, smiling. Always smiling. A clown is always laughed at not realizing why. That's why he is funny. The artists are always smiling, realizing that everyone is looking at them. That's why they are exotic and admirable but not in any way funny. Girls watching dancers and acrobats are inspired by them. No girl has ever wanted to become a clown. Has anyone ever seen female clowns? Rarely.
The last second before the act: always smile to yourself in the mirror .Even if you are betrayed. Hated. And your life is miserable. Always smile. Leonidia shall leave the stage smiling as she always has been.
She left her dressing room, struggling to walk in that scarf. She saw the exotic dancer after her act. She was a girl from India. A former prostitute. She was holding her mouthpiece and crying. The Host got her good.
'He hit you again?' Leonidia asked and the girl nodded.
Patricia breathed in for a second and took the girl’s mouthpiece. She smoked only in situations when she wanted to look cool but was scared to death.
This means he will beat up good after the show.
'I am happy it's his last chance to steal our money. This is our last show. Tickles is offering rum to everyone tonight. Be a pirate!' Leonidia told the girl.
The girl smiled and went towards the clown's dressing room.
'Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the most beautiful trapeze artist of all time, Leonidia!'
The crowd cheered, clapped, whistled, screamed. She started to feel the vibe. The entered gracefully, smiling as she always did.
I hope you die!
'What is your today's act, Leonidia? Isn't she gorgeous, gentlemen?'
Ain't you a bastard.
The crowd applauded.
'Thank you, thank you', Leonidia started when the crowd calmed down, 'I'd like to shock you with this new trick of mine!'
He looked at her with his evil grin. He didn't expect to hear that from her.
'Show us! Show us! Show us!' the Host screamed and the crowd repeated after him.
Leonidia smiled and started her act.
The lights, the music – everything now made her high. She was swaying, jumping, turning on those huge swings. Oh yes, it was dangerous.
'Now let me twine!' she screamed.
Her legs were in the air, she was holding herself on her own shoulders.
It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.
The crowd stood up, almost jumped with joy when they saw her doing that. Then she stood up on her feet again, unleashing her scarf, throwing it to another acrobat who tied it to a column. Her life was in his hands. But she just smiled at him. It was all she could do.
Please not death. Please not death. Please not death.
She jumped off the swings and started whirling around the scarf. The lights made her look like a human tornado. She made different postured while she was turning around and around, and around...
Maybe I should just let go.
The music became louder. Now the chorus joined in.
An acrobat died while doing a stunt no one has seen before.
She started whirling faster.
The crowd cried and they all went to her funeral. Why not.
She was upside-down now and began whirling in another direction.
The host of that tragic show got drunk and died because of overdose of absinth. Sounds great. I don't have anything left in life, so why not end it on stage just like it has begun?
The Host stood there motionlessly because he didn't expect her to do that.
Time to let go.
She let go of her scarf and flew down.
Everything has come to an end.
I don't want anything.
I hope we both meet in hell host.
You will vomit and scrub what's left of my corpse out from the ground.
...Freedom!
She had millions of thoughts while she was going down. But this blink before her eyes, the thought of being free, pushed death away from her.
She landed on her feet. Stood up. Raised her hands. And did what she had always done. She smiled. Looked right and laughed! Looked right and grinned! It was her show.
The crowd went wild. They were all affected by her perfection. They were under her spell. She blew a kiss toward the Host. He was angry. Oh, indeed he was. He was ready to pulverize her. Today Leonidia liked it. She liked it a lot. Leonidia was still on stage but Patricia left. The phantom of Leonidia shall never leave the stage and never cease hearing the cheering of the audience. Her audience.
Patricia started walking. She was smiling at clowns, dancers, acrobats who were inviting her for rum. She walked pass them. And kept going. People in the streets looked at her strangely as she was still in her stage costume. She looked at the theatre that ran the circus out of business. And kept walking again.
Gypsies. We are all gypsies. Always heading somewhere, searching for something, we don't even know what. We join something and we are thrown away like old broken marionettes. Even if we leave, it's because we are old and broken, and of course not necessary. And I like being alone. It's just sometimes so cold.
She walked towards the gypsy mahala, as they call it, a place where Romanies live. The wind was blowing. It was a cold night.
She saw a beautiful Gypsy woman and smiled at her. It was the only thing she could do: smile. And leave her thoughts to herself.
'It's so cold and you are smiling!' the woman said.
'Is it?' she grinned. She was shaking.
Only a phantom of Leonidia was still on stage. And everyone kept seeing that phantom. The Host, the dancers, the acrobats. And she? She has never learnt to take her smiling mask off.
An old, broken, thrown away marionette also smiles.
