| A TWICE WEEKLY SERIAL OF BIG TOP FOLK BY
SIMON PARKE |
|
EPISODE 11
THE BIG TOP AT MIDNIGHT
It's an unusual circus act; not one anyone has seen before. And to be honest, no one sees it tonight either, for it is midnight and the Big Top is empty.
With the evening show done, the troupe has packed up, put away and retired to their trailers; though the acrobats, with some bubbly in their bellies, are still fooling around in the field. You can ask them to shut up, but it never makes much difference. They get very superior and nasty when the champagne flows. A familiar voice deals now with a complaint about the noise:
"Go away, oik! Oiks like you should be in bed!"
It is the squealing tone of Georgio the Contortionist; a big noise in the gang:
"Oiks should be in bed; doing whatever oiks do!"
They are definitely a class apart, that lot.
Only Jess the Clown remains in the Big Top. He stands alone in the Ring; quite still in the dark sawdust space. Apart from the clown's hat, which he holds in his hand, he is naked; quite naked, and shivering a little.
It's not the first time he's done this. He has entered this void before, because there were occasions, amid the spit and glitter, when he found it hard to remember who he was.
And the dark silence reminds him; somehow, it always reminds him...
More clowning around |
