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does it matter, really, who fills a role? who is behind a mask, if they can wear it just as well?
the circus needed a trapeze artist. at the time, i didn’t know much about the grinning wheel. if anything. i had . . . avoided it for some time, given how similar it could be to the twisting deceit. but i was curious about finding the difference. so when a mutual friend of ours told me about the situation the dancer found itself in, i offered my . . . my abilities, honestly expecting to be turned down. but i went readily enough when it accepted.
there are still some similarities, of course. where does the fear of the face underneath a mask being different from the mask bleed into the fear of a mask itself? for what it denotes?
but there is a difference. if nothing else, in the fact that just because something is unknown to you doesn’t make it a lie.
i was very good as the trapeze artist. i won’t lie to you. i was able to find the razor-wire lines between the falling titan and the grinning wheel, and together, we made the crowds’ heads spin with vertigo and confusion. can they remember what the difference between up and down is? how big was this tent, when they walked into it? can they quite remember how gravity works, when they see someone like me hanging in the air for a few beats too long? depth perception, gravity, vertigo . . . we took the air from their lungs and the names from their faces.
i couldn’t tell you the names of anyone there. nor the faces. it was never . . . that just wasn’t how it worked. yes, technically, i was michael crew, or the dancer was nikola orsinov, but . . . not really. those names weren’t important. just what mask you wore. the trapeze artist, the dancer, the couriers, the ringmaster.
i remember some of the places we performed. if only because i would wonder, sometimes, how we had the space that we did. i remember the crowds. i remember what it felt like, to feed off that kind of . . . collective fear. i usually just . . . take one at a time, when i need to, few and far between. but with the crowds . . . there were times when they would be let go, and all of them would hold that fear with them for the rest of their lives, a low buzz in the back of our heads. like the way excitement rises in your throat. or the times where the circus kept them for . . . for their purposes. i was less involved with any of that. i didn’t have any need for skin, or other faces. i stayed away from it all.
i won’t pretend i didn’t enjoy it. i found other ways i could use the past i had. the way my scar by nature confused. i made the shirt i wore even more sheer, to let it be visible through it. the other bones in my body, their fractal-patterns, and the way it would sometimes let me twist just a little more than i should. the shape of the human body, a degree or two off from correct.
there are some names i could give you. places where the grinning wheel touched a little bit deeper, or the circus performed for days on end. but there is still a part of me that fights against that. naming it feels . . . wrong, somehow.
still. i remember - the house of wax, in yarmouth. astley’s ampitheatre, or the place where it once had been. the theatre royal haymarket. the place that was meant to be a hall of mirrors, out near algosova, where the mirrors were not mirrors, but panes of glass, and things that were not people would walk opposite you and slowly mimic your face, your gait, you, until they were the one walking out. the circus krone, after their performance had ended. many of the unfortunate people watching never realized when it switched from one cast to the next. from their show to ours.
the dancer was happy to have me. i remember her telling me some about their grand plans. about the world and the way it would become unknowable. our . . . mutual friend, laughing to me about the forest she had burned down to cover their tracks, after they had created hundreds of costumes there. preparations, for a much larger show. i was invited to be a witness, if i liked, but i said i most likely wouldn’t, around the time i left the show. i enjoyed my time there, but i didn’t envy the audience. and their . . . larger performance, the one drawing closer, made it seem like everyone who wasn’t a creature-of-masks would be included in the audience.
i ended up leaving, of course. i had my reasons for it. but first and foremost being . . . there were days where if i didn’t have my name so - if i hadn’t chosen my name, if the reason for that choosing wasn’t so ironed into my head, i believe i would have forgotten it. that it would have lost the significance it has to me. and the mask became . . . harder, to take off. i thought it was sweat from my exertion sticking it to my face, at first, until one night i had to spend nearly fifty minutes peeling it off, nearly taking the topmost layer of skin with it. like it was starting to fuse into my skin.
so i left, around then. i had another reason, but it was . . . petty. the dancer heard about . . . well. it isn’t important.
i left them officially, then. i couldn’t tell you how long i was with them. i’ve never had a good head for time to begin with, and it’s hardly easier in that place, with that company. i’ve had . . . once or twice i’ve been asked to join them again. for the larger shows. i keep in contact with a handful of them. i’m not sure i would call them friends, but . . . it’s an interesting option to have. the dancer, of course. mostly the dancer. but i am glad to see the ringmaster, or the couriers, or one of the fire-eaters, in their turns. i haven’t gotten to speak to them as much as before, lately. there are . . . always new members of the cast, and preparations to be made. if i did rejoin them, i would likely have to participate in the work of making some of the costumes, and i’ve . . . i don’t enjoy the idea of that.
they have worked with the scorched earth, now and again. the grinning wheel is all too happy to help them with their molded faces, and the scorched earth doesn’t mind helping them cover their tracks. a mutually beneficial thing. i believe . . . other than that, though, they are largely on their own.
i know their . . . unknowing is coming. but given the constant flow of additions to their cast, with the choir being added to every day, and costumes for some of the members who couldn’t participate until now, a little too formless to pass in seamlessly, i’m not certain they need a trapeze artist for it.
still. theirs is always an interesting perspective to hear from.