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The starry night enveloped the circus like a veil, encasing the tents in a globe. People walked the dirt paths, weaving through the vendors towards the main attraction. The luminescent tent roared with life, the occasional roar eliciting excited laughter from the crowd. Deeper inside, a spindly man sat inside the dressing room.
“You’ll miss the performance at this rate,” a blonde woman mumbled, adjusting her leotard as she walked past him. He pressed a brush lathered in white paint against his cheek, hard enough that he felt it press against his cheekbone.
Another left the tent, then another, Sergei's performance(which always went on longer than intended) required more dancers each day to amplify its fantastically over the top nature. There was no need to rush, the clown saw more and more people leave his show each day, dejected as they realised he could not live up to Sergei’s act.
The clown yelped as he felt an arm wrap around his neck, and a cheek press against his own. There was no need to turn around, only one person bothered to approach him here. “Mike,” He started with a tremor, “what are you doing? You should be working backstage for Sergei.”
“Sergei doesn’t need me! C’mon he’s got half the circus ecstatic and the other half working for him. That casanova won’t even let me perform along with him, he won’t mind missing an extra sparkler here or there.”
The man stifled a sigh as Mike gripped his jaw to reapply the paint Mike had rubbed off, opting to finger paint instead of using the brush discarded on the table.
“You should skip tonight’s show, everyone’s so excited from Sergei that I’m not sure many will be left afterwards.”
Mike watched the clown’s lip quiver in an all too familiar way before continuing, “I mean, I don’t think I could continue the show either, only Natalie could keep it going.” The man’s face brightened at the mention of the dancer, “Do you think she will?”
Mike shook his head, “Nah, I bet Sergei will whisk her away again.” He leaned in close, gently caressing the clown’s cheek with the brush.
The clown swung his head back, staring up at the ceiling apathetically. “It’s not fair Mike, why does a man like him get a woman as lovely as her? I don’t get it.”
Mike stared down at his work, the clown’s face painted into an expression accurate to his miserable mood.
“He met her a long time ago, didn’t he? It’s unreasonable to think she’d leave him now” Mike replied, brushing the clown’s hair out of his face. He recognized him more now with the make-up, twelve years of attending his shows set that in stone. He recalled a boy, no older than ten, limping onto stage. Mike remembers thinking the clown must be a very good actor, as his eyes were already filled with tears by the time he made it on set. Mike backed away as the clown stood up, hesitantly staring at the entrance to the stage.
“Do you really think no one will be left behind for my show?” Mike knew the answer, it was not the one the clown wanted. It was unfair, the clown was always performing despite his hatred of it. The clown always followed Natalie backstage despite her ambivalence towards him. And although Mike saw himself not a man but rather a performer, he found himself hating the clown’s show, because it always followed the same tune of despair. He knew his younger self would have smacked him across the face if he knew Mike thought like this now, and criticised him for his lack of fellowship. He wondered if it was selfish, wishing the clown would abandon his show and perform with him instead. The world had never given the clown a chance, his show would never see the light of day. He saw the world in black and white, and Mike was too complicated to be included.
“I’ll be there,” Mike replied, “I wouldn’t ever miss one of Pierre’s shows!” And although the remark was teasing, the clown still cringed at the use of his real name.
The smile the clown gave him was certainly fake, yet Mike still had to look away to quell his heartbeat. For the first time in a very long time, Mike wondered what the smile would’ve looked like without the face-paint.