Flying

~ This was written as a stand-alone character study for a class assignment. ~

The thing that Julian loved the most about trapeze was the flight—the stomach-dropping moment when his hands left the safety of the bar and every muscle in his body tensed in perfect harmony. There was no rush of cold air like when leapt across building tops, but at least he got to wear clean now. Marques liked to tease him for his lack of a self-preservation instinct during his days of flinging himself across buildings, but Julian would just laugh like the a metal spoon against a china cup and and remind Marques that he hadn’t died yet.

Today’s rehearsal was especially important as the troupe was preparing for a performance at the Chicago World’s faire. Tents had to be raised, animals trained, and costumes sewn. Julian had put in a special request for blue and purple beads, but Anita had denied him saying that, as always, there was not enough money. Julian should know better than to ask for luxuries such as color choice, but he simply could not help himself. He dreamed of jewel-laden royal blue shirts with matching slippers, maybe some make-up as well if he really wanted. But blue was expensive. Lucille had loved blue as well. He refused to let tears fall for his sister. No use in pitying himself. No use in remembering what would only bring him guilt. 

Marques’s shrieks brought him back to his not-quite-glamorous reality.

“Julian! It’s time for your set,” his thick accent had just begun to fade in the last three years since his arrival in America. Julian’s was gone entirely. Dutch accents seemed to fade rather rapidly and his young age had helped matters significantly.

Pale skin and mousy hair were his greatest assets, but they hadn’t proved enough. He’d had to learn to rely on intellect and agility instead. But apparently those had not done him justice either. For a while, they had worked in his favor, but hubris had been his true downfall. Hubris and blue dye. 

Reviewing routines was never Julian’s favorite part of the process, but Marques and the others deemed the meetings necessary. Julian was inclined to agree, but his fingers tingled with anticipation that made focussing impossible. His stomach would churn with butterflies while discussing flips and releases and how to fall without breaking one’s neck—though Julian would never admit to even a trace of nerves.  

“...and thus ends the routine,” Marques finished his speech—embellished with predicted audience reactions—and made eye contact with each of his two flyers for clarification that each had worked out the physical logistics for themselves. In the two years the Julian had learned to stop jumping from tenements and start jumping from suspended wooden planks, he had grown close to Maxime. She was young, two years Julius’s junior, and was Marques’s younger sister. Like his, her accent was pronounced, but less so.

Julian and Maxime had learned each other’s patterns of movement to perfection. The only slips in performance from either came from Julian’s distractibility or Maxime’s lack of body mass. Food was hard to find and she paid the price more than the others. A good night’s sleep was even harder to come by. Harder than the thin stuffed mattresses and hay bales that the troupe members slept on.

At least the conditions were better than at Mrs. Hendry’s Home for Youths, or so Julian told himself. Maybe Hendry’s had been better. Regardless of the truth, Julian needed to believe that this life was better than the one he abandoned. Thievery had paid well but the circus paid in family. If only his sister had been able to come with him. She was still with Hendry, or maybe with a rich white family, or maybe hunched over a sewing machine with cracking palms and oiled cheeks. On days when his imagination wanted to make a particularly strong statement, Julian saw her with a clean-faced mother and father sitting in front of a raging fireplace. It was a quaint scene surrounded by books and toys and knit blankets. Lucille was, of course, wearing a blue dress.

Maxime placed her hand on Julian’s shoulder.

“Do you think you have it?”

He nodded with all of his usual showmanship, exuding more confidence in one ridiculous grin then most people could muster in a lifetime.

The two climbed the thin rungs to the opposing platforms suspended feet above the ground. At this point the platforms no longer shook from nerves. Julian was able to keep those emotions sufficiently in check as was Maxime.

She gave her signature nod; a short movement of her neck full of determination and a quality of focus that Julian had never been able to replicate. 

The two breathed together and leapt from their perches. Hands clasped around the chalky bars with the ease and practice of the birds they attempted to emulate. Bodies swung as if made to do so. They were encased in a bubble through which no external stimuli could permeate and interrupt their calculated dance. 

This is what Julian lived for: the moments in which nothing else mattered but his defiance of gravity. When he and Maxime sprouted a rainbow of vibrant feathers and they forgot everything but each other’s swinging limbs. He lost touch with the world; hidden behind a hazy fog of memories that he shut out from his consciousness. His sister, mother, father, homeland, and so much more disappeared behind the velvet curtain of the circus tent. He had to believe that Marques and Maxime and the troupe were his real home for if he didn’t he would surely lose his wings and only then would Julian fall.