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It was well past midnight and Yor sat in a dingy bar, knocking back cheap whiskey. Her drink of choice was normally a good red, Merlot or Carmenere, but on days like this, when she wanted to get dead drunk as fast as possible. Well, faster than usual. She needed something stronger. The liquid swirled in the glass, a single ice cube floating on its surface. The warm lights overhead reflected off the amber colored surface, the music from the piano and the singer's crooning voice sounded as maudlin as she felt. She lifted the drink to her lips, tipping the last of its contents down her throat. The liquid burned, threatening a cough. She slammed the glass down, catching the bartender’s eye. She signaled for a refill waving her glass around in front of him.
“Rough day?” he asked as he poured the drink in her glass.
“You don’t know the half of it,” she said, nursing her glass. “I’m…” an assassin “a clerk.”
The bartender nodded sagely, as if that statement was enough explanation.
It wasn’t. Her job at Berlint City Hall was only a cover story, a smokescreen for her real job as one of Garden’s top operatives. Despite the alcohol settling warmly in her stomach, she had enough presence of mind not to reveal that little aspect of herself to this unassuming stranger. She clenched the glass in her hand and gulped down half of her drink, remembering.
“Keep them coming,” she told the man.
How she hated shades of gray. Give her the blackest blacks any day and she wouldn’t bat an eye: evil people with nothing redeemable about them; clear cut traitors, the kind who would sell their own grandmothers for a handful of coins. Degenerates who would kill puppies for the fun of it or steal from orphanages. Her latest target had been anything but. She couldn’t make sense of it. Yor had followed him for weeks, learning his schedule: A regular guy with a regular job. He had breakfast at the same cafe every day; bought a newspaper at the same newsagents; and always returned home at the usual time. Nothing suspicious or untoward about him. Shopkeeper hadn’t given her any details. And she hadn’t had a choice.
“It’s not fair!” She blurted. The alcohol was loosening her tongue.
“Hmm?” The bartender seemed surprised she was addressing him.
“I never wanted to be… a clerk” After three glasses, Yor felt way beyond the point where she would feel embarrassed by making such revelations.
“Ah,” the bartender said, nodding as if he understood perfectly well. It occurred to Yor that it probably wasn’t the first time he had heard a statement like that, but she was well beyond the point of caring. She wanted to get the thought that had been niggling at her mind for ages.
“Laugh all you want but I always wanted to be an acrobat,” she said defiantly, with all the confidence that only a drunk could muster.
“You too wanted to run away from home and join the circus?” Yor noticed a smile tugging at the corner of the bartender’s mouth.
She snickered. “It sounds silly when you say it like that.” She took a sip of her drink. “But it’s one of the last good memories I have of my parents.”
His eyes grew warm, leaning towards her he said, “I’d like to hear about it.” His voice was as soft as the notes from the piano.
She licked her lips, a hint of hesitation coming through the liquor haze. The story wasn’t a dangerous secret, but it was personal, a single moment she treasured and held close to her heart when life got to be too much. Her eyes found the bartender’s. His look, beguilingly earnest and free of judgment, pulled her in.
"It was before my little brother was born," she began. "A circus was in town and my parents took me there. El Circo de los Hermanos Malabares it was called.” She managed to both slur and roll the Rs with exaggerated enthusiasm. “They had several juggling acts as you would imagine, and I was hooked. I thought there was nothing those guys couldn’t do: they were agile, funny, fearless.”
The bartender whistled. “Sounds impressive.”
Yor nodded, smiling. “It was, and not only for a little girl. Those guys had some serious skills. Nothing I’ve encountered in my life so far has rivaled what I saw that day and trust me I’ve seen many, many things.”
She finished her drink and asked for more. “I remember that day like it was yesterday…”
Yor closed her eyes and was transported to the past, speaking to her audience of one as the memories came to her. She was six going on seven. The smell of popcorn, cotton candy and dirt permeated the air; her mother’s soft hand squeezing hers; her father’s voice as he was holding out his hand for her mother, urging them to hurry. The show was about to start.
As they took their seats, the lights went out, then a spotlight shone in the middle of the stage. The master of ceremony spoke words she couldn’t understand. The spotlight moved to a corner of the tent, a lone man stood at the top of a narrow platform. He waved with a flourish at the audience, a proud smile on his face. At that moment, all the lights went on revealing a tightrope overhead as a drumroll reverberated in her ears. The audience gasped in awe, Yor clung to her father’s pant leg, he stroked her hair reassuringly. The man stepped onto the tightrope, one foot in front of the other, he caressed the rope with his foot confidently. Three clubs then appeared on his hands, quickly the first one went in the air, then a second, and the third as he continued balancing on the rope. Mouth open, Yor was mesmerized.
So engrossed was she in her tale that she didn’t notice the man with an afro and a somber look in his bespectacled eyes sitting next to her. Nor did she notice the look the bartender and the newcomer exchanged, the tightening of the bartender’s jaw, the sharpening of his eyes, the other man’s almost imperceptible nod, the napkin placed under his drink. She was oblivious to the newcomer downing his drink in one go, leaving soon after with the piece of paper in his grasp, the tension in the bartender’s fingers as he wiped the surface the other man had just vacated. The man was gone before anybody in the bar noticed.
While her mind was elsewhere, her body was moving on its own. She ran her hands across her stilettos, smooth under her hands. In her mind, the acrobat threw a club in the air and caught it in the opposite hand. Yor’s hands mimicked the movement, using the same hands, the tools different. He jumped, then flipped forward, legs outstretched, balancing on one foot on the tightrope. Yor jumped, doing a spin of her own. The movements were different in look but natural to her body. She twirled, leg outstretched, her skirts flaring around her, stilettos in the air, going in the direction she deemed them to, an extension of her body that she controlled with expert precision. At that moment, she was only movement, poetry in motion. The moves she used to fight and kill transformed into something beautiful.
The performance ended with a backflip on the opposite side of the tightrope, the acrobat’s heavy breaths accompanied by a broad smile. Applause erupted all around Yor, her own tiny hands joining the uproar. Cheers and shouts and whistles rung in her ears, her eyes shone with marvel at the spectacle she’d just witnessed. At the other side of the bar, a lone pair of claps reached her ears in the present; whooping from further away was there too. She turned around to face their source, a broad grin splattered all over her face, a blush spread across her cheeks. She bowed in his direction, tucking away her stilettos in her leg holsters.
“Very impressive,” the bartender said after he stopped clapping.
Yor grabbed her forgotten drink, finishing it up in one go. “Do you think they’d give me my own show?”
“I would!” A voice from a table further away cut in. Yor raised her glass in its direction.
“Thanks, drunk guy.” She said getting a refill. She had lost count of how many drinks she’d had.
The bartender chuckled, a deep, pleasant rumble from within his chest. Oh. She liked that sound. Yor turned her head, following it. For the first time in the evening, she gave him a good look: Tall, slender, with blonde hair and gorgeous green eyes. She decided she liked the rest of him as well.
Emboldened by the alcohol, she asked “What’s your name? Wait! No, don’t tell me. Let me guess.” She gave him a clumsy once over, and scrunched her face in concentration. “It’s… Jimmy!” She forgot the name she said as soon as it left her mouth.
The bartender chuckled, leaning on the bar, hands spread. “A veritable acrobat and a psychic? You are a woman of many talents.”
Yor giggled, a blush that had nothing to do with the alcohol colored her cheeks. “Oh, I like you. What do you say, Charlie, when I get my show, would you be my lovely assistant? We’ll make a killing.” A part of her brain, the rational, but conspicuously absent one, was mortified that the man would think she was coming onto him. The current, very intoxicated one didn’t care one bit.
The man rubbed the back of his neck. It might have been her imagination, but Yor thought she could see a bit of pink at the top of his ears. “I thought only magicians had assistants.”
She hit the bar with her fist, her mood shifting quick. “It’s my fantasy. I can do whatever I want.”
The man chuckled, raising his hands in defeat. “Fair enough. But I want a say in the costume.”
She beamed. “Deal!” Toasting to herself with glass in the air. Coming down from her high, Yor ran her fingers along the edge of her glass. Her smile faltered, taking on a sad edge as she spoke. "You know, everything I’ve done, I’ve done it for my brother. He’s all I have left and I’d do anything for him. But I…” She felt the sting of tears, a few clung to her eyelashes as she blinked them away. “Don’t you wish there was more to life than surviving?”
The man’s eyes clouded for a second, turning wistful. Yor got the sense that he knew exactly what she was asking. “It’s a beautiful dream,” he said softly. She thought she could burst into tears at that. “But for now,” his demeanor changed, turning impish. “You have the bottom of that glass.”
Yor choked out a laugh, the absurdity of which a balm to her soul. “A poor substitute, but what isn’t?” she said, raising her glass. “Cheers.”
Her body felt heavy, a mix between the impromptu performance and the alcohol coursing through her veins. It seemed like a good idea, to only rest her eyes for one second. She leaned her head on her arms, out like a light soon after.
*****
Yor felt a hand on her shoulder, words she couldn’t make out close to her ear. “Yuri? Is it morning already? Do you have your homework?” Soft laughter. That was strange. Yuri didn’t sound like that. Yor pried her eyes open, taking in her surroundings. Stools, a piano, a bar, green eyes, blonde hair, black bowtie, a vest, rolled up sleeves. Who… Oh. She tried to get up from her seat, staggering as her foot caught on one of her legs. The bartender caught her, holding her forearm as she straightened up.
She mumbled a curse under her breath.
“I’m sorry, miss, it’s closing time,” he said. “I got you a taxi. It’s waiting just outside.” He kept his hand close to her arm in case she would stumble again. She mumbled a word of thanks.
They went out the door, cool night air hit her glowing cheeks. He opened the door to the taxi, she reached up to grab his hand before she went in. “Thanks, Ricky. You’ve been so good to me.”
He let out a soft huff of laughter. “It’s Loid, actually.” At her look of confusion, he added “My name… It’s Loid.”
“Oh,” she sighed, feeling the corners of her mouth tug upwards. “Loid… Nice to meet you.” She continued, unprompted “I like it. Better than Billy. ”
Loid smiled softly, easing her into the car. “Good night, miss.” He closed the door behind her. She waved him goodbye.
Later on that night, tucked away in her bed, Yor dreamed. She dreamed about bright lights, a colorful stage, and soft green eyes.