A Bare Bulb on a Black Cord Attached to a Wooden Rafter

An early autumn wind came creeping like panther paws beneath the curtains of his attic room window. The cold nimbly planted itself on the floor then stretched beneath his chair, a hard-backed desk chair, where he had worked for what was going on fifty years now.

Beneath a bare bulb on a long, black cord attached to a wooden rafter, he worked, quietly and unsteadily, tremors and palsies of old-age. Head down, eyes straining behind scratched glasses, he assembled and painted the unwitting survivors, figurines, of his story to be told. They would be the ghosts now. They would laugh in wonder as the pieces of his scale model circus came to life, again, for a while, to play out the scene as it should have played.

Then she would know. Then she would know.

Back then, he had almost become foreman, the lead on assembly and take down. The big top would go up fast when he was in charge. Young and scrappy in his pin-striped overalls, he could scale the scaffolding and be up out of sight before most men could even get footing on the ladders beneath. He was not a performer, but he took his job seriously. And he knew that his speed, agility, and strength put him on par with all the talent in the three rings below. The acrobats and contortionists, trapeze and high wire, they all brought a dedication and perseverance to their craft. They didn’t know him, his ruddy face, his budding beard, dark eyes that made him look more serious than he actually was.

He could have been a ghost, a flap in the tent canvas behind, gone when turning to see who was there.

She, the one with the lost eyes and humble smile, turned back to her stretches as he slipped to a darker spot behind the animals and their cages. Peering out like a lemur, he watched her warm up, this being her best performance, the one she did for herself, or, at least, thought she did for herself. She flipped her hair, twirling it, spinning it to a top-knot, to keep it from her eyes while up on her hands, over and under, smooth motion, a slow-motion elegance, steady and more confident than her eyes let on.

He watched every time. He felt like a creep. He had tried to say something, while passing her on the sawdust, while sitting across from her at meal time, while leveling and chocking the wheels on her one-bed travel trailer. But he never said anything. Never had.

She died not knowing.

Opening night, town folks filled the stands, young and old, big and small. The clown troupe worked their balloon animal gag for spare dimes. The mayor stood by smiling and nodding, thumbs tucked beneath the buckles on his suspenders. Popcorn crunching, soda slurping, the families jockeyed for the best seats. The spotlights swept all corners of the tent. The stage band oompahed with lots of coronets and snare drum. Three traditional circus rings, white and red, marked the boundaries of wonders to come.

He sat with his legs crossed on an octagonal platform in the big top apex. He had checked all the rigging once then twice over. Everything seemed tight and secure. All the knots, all the buckles, all the guy wires. He knew this attention to detail would cinch his bid for the foreman job. All left to do now was enjoy the show. And patiently wait for his favorite part, when she came on.

Cymbals and drums swelled to a majestic fanfare as the ringmaster magically appeared in a puddle of light, center ring. Eight mustachioed men swirled around him on unicycles. A clown juggled bowling pins. A contortionist split herself in half. The crowd hurrahed for subsequent acts brought on without further adieu. Lion tamer, trapeze, high wire, acrobats, monkeys and clowns threw confetti in one another’s faces, a daredevil shot himself from a patriotic cannon, landing beyond the bleachers on several stacks of mattresses.

Then she came on, lowered over the ring, sitting coquettishly in her brass hoops and long silks. Still high off the ground, enough to be dangerous, she began her graceful maneuvers to the music of Tchaikovsky, crackling over the loudspeakers. About midway in she jerked, losing grip, dropping about six inches. Panic. He saw it in her eyes. She saw it in his as he peered from his bird’s nest up above. Something was wrong and they both knew it. He overhanded his way closer to the rigging to check connections and cables. He reached for the place he saw as a weak spot when it unwound and frayed right before him. He grabbed to catch it. He grabbed air.

She spiraled to the ground. The crowd, stunned to silence, heard her swan neck snap.

He had lost his footing when he made his grab. He caught a loose flap in the tent top. He rode the rip down, landing roughly on the ground off stage, a knee buckling awkwardly, a limp he carried into old age. It troubled him getting up the attic stairs to his circus model. Nevertheless, he persisted.

The circus crowd tittered with concern. The clowns dropped their wigs and noses to bring out a stretcher although everyone knew it was too late. A little boy, about four, pointed upward to the rip in the tent. A bulbous, full moon loomed large through the opening.

Then the moon started to sway. Like a light bulb in an attic. The old man’s weight on the black cord he had tied around his neck made the rafter creak. The bare bulb flickered on his chest in his long beard. He was dead. Suffocation from hanging. The rigging gave way and his body fell to the floor of his scale model circus. He landed where she landed. He hoped that now, after all, he could muster the courage to introduce himself.

©2022 J. Brian Reed