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greed of the sunflower —
Mike Morton, star acrobat, ringlets golden like a sunflower, born for and of praise. He bounds gracefully, a leap landing him into the lion’s pit. Nothing stops him from coaxing the lion's attention, a low, trained growl behind him that makes him smile. It’s a joy when the audience gasps in fear—in fear for his life—but he stashes the thought.
He wants to prove his immortality.
He laughs: a clear but rich twinkle, loud enough to be heard, soft enough to be charming. Among the nine acrobats he tumbles alone, a bit too forward in his position, his jumps a tad high, and his pace a bit too quick, as if rushing the music himself. And when he grins ear-to-ear, barely holding back his winded breaths, he absorbs the shattering applause that shakes him in his very stance.
It's mine, he thinks as he soars midair, not bothering to even glance at his mates around him. Azure eyes, rimmed with blinding gold powder, proudly trace rows of blurrily clapping hands—this thunder.
He lands the somersault and basks in the afterglow—the drum in the music rings rich in his ears, thrums in his beating heart. The spotlight encloses him, feeds his blooming ego.
These small bits of wealth: the draft from his flowing cape pumping the spring breeze into his veins, golden hair whipping about like a field of wheat, the constant reminder of being alive—fueling the spring in his elbow with a swoop, forcing him to forget the impact of the hard ground that seizes his legs. Adrenaline.
It leads his whimsy up the ladder, this final stage; the tightrope closes in as the lights above blind him. That same thunder falls silent then, collective breath held across the audience below him.
And the silence is deafening. Mike Morton can hear himself breathe. He tries not to wince at this reminder of his mortality; swears he hears the ladder rattle in his powdered hands. It’s not like anyone else would notice now. He’s so, so close to the top of the tightrope.
The top!
The first scream reaches his ear.
It winds its way up to Mike’s already sweating hands, prying them off the steel. The poor acrobat glances down alarmedly, pure fear crawling up his tiring arms. And horror seizes him.
The net is lit ablaze, the circus is on fire, and Mike watches as the flames dance and eat up everything he knows: those cheap wooden chairs that he’d lovingly helped paint, lined up now like tombstones in the circus; the twinkling lights atop the stage flicker a warning; and the happiness on the faces of people that are alive, alive, seem only to wither away. The circus-goers are screeching and jostling; the blazes reach out to taste, lap them.
There is a commotion as the fire untames the lion, twisting in his breaches. The crowd is ushered outside and the lion dragged elsewhere, closer to the growling flames; Mike swears he could hear the lion whimper. The acrobat spots his eight fellow performers scurrying, and in his worry, he forgets the scornful glares they've oft sent his way. His chest only lurches in fear when he sees a burning pillar collapse at the seats.
One, two, three, four, five make it out. One, two, three other acrobats, and the lion's mane lit aglow—anguished, sweaty faces—trip over each other to pause before they fall into the curtain of flames. For a minute they ponder together, seeming to calculate their odds and ends before making a rash choice. Yet with ease all three manage to jump over, but then the fire rises. He watches the lion roar, retreating backwards and hissing at the pillar—and in some gruesome schadenfreude, he's almost happy seeing him left behind—but even the lion follows suit, bravely making the leap. And suddenly, Mike finds himself alone.
Mike's heart sinks into an anxious skip. He is the ninth acrobat.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum. His arms are sinking.
They’re leaving, he panics, forgetting to keep his performer's grin, leaving Mikey up on his tower.
There’s melancholy as he dully forces himself to keep performing, blindly climbing up each rickety step of the ladder with a shaky pause in between. He senses the blinding light hanging from the tent’s ceiling above him flickering abruptly, and dying (the fire must be taking it away, too) before it gives way to his sight again.
Mike Morton heaves and forcefully returns his focus to the ladder, and suddenly he’s much more aware of his heaving chest. It’s harder to tame his breath, and his muscles feel so rigid, but at least his sweat-slicked hands, knuckles protruding ivory-white, stop trembling.
No, wait—he sees them let go. His arms billow out in front of him, and suddenly he thinks he’s dreaming. The air around him grows hotter, thicker, and the smoke curling into his throat knocks out any effort of protest, but—!
“Wait!” he yells hastily.
As if the word would close around a falling boy in his burning home, holding him close to its core.
As if he’s ever been babied by the spotter.
Stick the landing, Mikey. He sees, in the smoky haze: the taut lines of her mouth first, eternally displeased, before he sees her supporting arms retracting, and he anticipates hitting the pavement.
It’s not that hard!
He is falling, falling. He’s tripped many times before, but this time he thinks he’s done for, this time his world ceases in its turning path, and he watches it happen.
It’s all too fast and too slow, and nothing registers when it’s on fire and he’s upside down, and no mantra willingly pops up in his head in his anguish. And when his back barely hits the roasting safety net with a rippling stretch, it makes him take a gasp, and he bounds upward towards the sky once more.
His body floats in midair for a second
but sinks back down, down into the net,
tears through wind and rope.
And when he lands, flesh and bone thumping hard against concrete, he chokes out air—a single echo resounds in the burning tent.
Silence.
There’s a delayed throb in his skull. He imagines his head is still floating somewhere in midair, fluttering. Gone.
You’ve done so well, Mike hears in its finality, or maybe heard once, like a passing breath or memory. And the sound fades, replaced by the threatening lick of flames, coiling around his nape before burning down his world.
The prideful Mike Morton, heliophilic sunflower, collapses upon his tower without making it to the tightrope. And he must’ve forgotten what happened next, or his lashes, dusted with ash and glitter, have fluttered shut.