I've always been fascinated by those making their living in the circus, and this essay takes us behind the curtain, to see the people behind the attractions. The description in this work is just right, and the ending is bittersweet.
We are all there at the wake — the juggler, the glass walker, the girl with no intestines, the fire eater, the sword swallower, the magician, the blockhead, the musicians, the clowns, and the dancing girls — this little family we have made.
We don't even know each others' real names. We go by our stage names, we go by what sells, go by the poster, by the show, the lights, the curtain. We who wear sequins, feathers, short skirts, red coats, striped pants, top hats, and suspenders. We who don't know how to dress for a funeral.
Death has exposed her real name. Revealed her childhood. Discovered her family in the next room. Her mother, her father, their friends wearing black and speaking in murmurs. Lawyers and doctors all. They know how to take bad news. Patients dead, cases lost. Another life, another day. Her life, what was her life? Do they know it or do we?
I see her on stage now. Velvet midriff, tight jazz pants, and flaming fire fans. The amazing, the stupendous, the sexy Lila Flamme will razzle dazzle you. She pops her hips, she bats her eyes, she blows two kisses to the crowd. Lila Flamme, the fire maiden, born from a volcanic eruption in Hawaii, born with flame-retardant skin. She will light your fire. Watch her lick your torch. We make her invincible. This is how we sell sideshow.
But she wasn't invincible, off-stage. Two years ago, they called it cancer and we knew she'd beat it. Lila wasn't afraid of surgical knives. She'd balance them on her head, she'd pull through, she'd make it against all odds. Ten to one. We knew. We knew she'd survive.
And she did. She did for a while. Dancing through chemo, "the girl with no hair," dancing through surgery, "she-Frankenstein, scarred by science," dancing through radiation, "Madame Half-Life, straight from the microwave." We had a name for every treatment. We had experienced horror. We had put it on stage.
And we had known pain. Known how to control it. No miracle cure, no magic for that. There's no trick to pain, even on the stage. Walking on glass, bed of nails, staple in the forehead, flaming hoops...fire burns, nails pierce skin. We get used to physical pain. But we're not used to this. This is a different kind of pain.
Her ending, and we keep looking for an encore. Bad script. Do it again Lila, do it again. Jump up. Say it's just a game. We look at the magician, but he's run out of cards.
So we sit here, some twenty-score, actors without a word between us. Shall we take the flowers from our hair and throw them at her feet? Oh lovely Lila, what will you have us do, when you're not there to dance with us tomorrow?
We will mourn for you in our separate ways. Not in a room, in black, in a building made of concrete. Not staring at a picture of you on a white wall surrounded by flowers. We will find you when we crack our whips, when we fling our hair, when we juggle our knives, when we charm our snakes. We'll mourn for the emptiness that is the stage without you. We'll think of you when the curtain comes down, Lila, bowing in that final moment...tonight you made the grandest exit of us all.
Ariel Whitworth is a writer and editor in Washington, DC. When she's not writing, she often performs in variety shows. This piece is dedicated to a friend of hers, whose struggle with cancer ended in Fall 2008.