Circus
Legacy Name: Circus

For once, living on the open road and rails wound up being beneficial for Circus. Sure, it was a means to travel as far and as wide as his new home could ever take him, but it also offered a great deal more after “the incident.”

Distance.

A few hundred miles easily made all the difference in life back when household televisions were unheard of and word-of-mouth took forever-and-a-day to spread truth or falsehoods alike. As the days and weeks passed, the rumors would barely span a ten-mile radius. By train, Circus and the rest of his family were performing far away from the farmlands of the Midwest in just a matter of 48-hours.It was that vast space that at least gave Circus some solace, as well as time to think. After all, it takes monumental pressure to make someone like he snap.

The canine’s co-workers helped assuage Circus’s rage and guilt. In the aftermath of closing up the rings and tents and hauling everything off on their train, he recovered quickly. The strongwoman made it her duty to dote on him, giving both of Circus’s heads the scritches they desperately needed. It was a rare sight for any of the performers to see the Janus-esque pup’s faces be anything other than cheerful and sullen. But after the damage had been done, Circus’s left face lost its joy, and his right face only sank deeper into is sorrowful abyss.

But even as the slate-furred dog’s started to slowly return to normal through hugs and reassurances that their compatriots would have easily done the same, something deeper was lost. As attentive as Circus’s big top family had been in caring and protecting him after the debacle, there was only so much that they could do. Whether it was from guilt that they could not reach, or a newfound rage that slowly burned in the innocent pup’s soul, some wounds are not so easy to mend.

By the time they reached San Francisco the entire crew had put things behind them. They still tended to Circus whenever they could, making sure that half of him was as happy as a clam and the other half was just sad enough, his usual baseline. As usual in their line of work, the mantra of “the show must go on!” would hopefully cure all of the sweet dog’s ills. His clown act was still scheduled to go on, as normal, but they at least held off on the meet-and-greets around the town beforehand and on the camping grounds where they held the evening performances. Baby steps, after all.

Circus, for his part, did his best to get back into the swing of things. He didn’t even balk at putting on his costume once more. As he slipped it on, feeling it conform to his contours and hug his feral body as well as it ever had, it was like a security blanket. The white-colored ruffled cuffs and collar of the ensemble hugged his wrists and ankles reassuringly as in older times, and his little pink and blue triangular hats flopped as they always did on his heads.

With his crestfallen side adorned in pink and his brighter side adorned with the hues of a beautiful clear sky, the pup couldn’t help but slowly wag his nub of a tail as he applied his white greasepaint. Clowning had always been his escapism, both figuratively and literally. While his mental faculties tended to be politefully considered to be on the slower side, he found solace in the fact that his paws were dexterous and as nimble as any other masterful performer. Circus could breathe life into balloon animals in seconds, always offering them to children and parents alike with his sadder side. In the ring and in the spotlight he could summon balls and pins from out of thin air, juggling them at ludicrous speeds and heights.

However, the question remained whether or not Circus could still perform while being the center of attention. He was one of the traveling show’s best clowns, having the longest time in the ring amongst all of his clowning brothers and sisters. While each received the spotlight he always received the most attention and applause, both in part of his unique looks and his prowess.

All of their best wishes and hopes notwithstanding, the ringmaster privately consorted with the other performers about a back-up plan if Circus should falter in the ring. Nothing drastic other than a planned segue into the next act and offering Circus some shows off for relaxation and recovery. The fact that the pup seemed eager to immediately get back into the swing of things worried the crew. They all had their own moments in their lives where things had gone wrong, if not several times over. Adapting to those hardships always seemed to take them more time than they had anticipated. And as gentle and as heartwarming as Circus was in the past, perhaps a severe trauma would break their tender spirit more than the rest.

But, in the end, they all worried for naught. The show, as a whole, was as rousing a success as always. Halfway through the performance, when it came time for Circus to follow-up on the other clowns’ antics and perform solo, he gave it everything he had. Perhaps it was because this audience didn’t start off as cruel as the last one, more accepting of the entertainment and the performers in front of them. Or it could have been an overwhelming desire to please others once more to feel some sort of normalcy.

Circus started with balloon animals, usually too small a feat to enjoy in such a large tent with an audience numbering in the hundreds. After he crafted his first balloon giraffe, tossing it up into the air, he kept on crafting. Elephants, zebras, gazelles, lions, lionesses, hyenas, vultures, and other animals were created and pitched into the air before the former had even landed on the ground. Within two minutes Circus had surrounded himself with nearly two dozen glorious creatures and baobab trees, fabricating an African savanna all around him before taking a masterful bow.

The lack of applause didn’t phase Circus in the slightest. Their collective gasps told his trained ears that he had their full attention.

His fellow clowns of all sizes and stripes hurried over to grab the delicate creations and hand them out to children in the stands. In the interim, Circus continued onward with his juggling. As usual, he started with balls in particular, slowly adding one after another until eight at once seemed to be too much for his foremost paws alone. Sure, he sat on his haunches, slowly introducing spins, turns, and twirls along the way. Once comfortable with the eight on-hand, he sprung to his hind legs and pretended to run out-of-control out of the ring and towards the left side of the audience, as if losing balance and poise. The act seemed to hinge on keeping everything afloat.

With the ruse already set, Circus stopped a few steps shy of the first row, instantly regaining control, as both of his faces winked to the crowd and took a hint of a bow. As he was greeted with applause, he took a few one-footed hops backward until he was situated in the ring once more. He leapt one more time, right as he sent each ball hurtling towards the top of the tent itself. It bought him enough time to somersault in place and flop right onto his back, raising the dirt around him and obscuring the audience’s view. The crowd could only wonder what would happen as the spheres sank back down to the floor, right where Circus was covered in a cloud of dust.

Still, the balls returned right back up into the air without a hitch. People started to cry out as they noticed that pins were being added to the mix in the interim, as well as a few extra orbs. By the time the dirt had settled the weathered canine was using all four paws to cycle and add more objects to his juggling frenzy. By the time he did a handstand and kept every single item airborne without a single slip-up, the citizens rose to their feet and let themselves be heard.

The thunderous applause continued for four straight minutes. Palms were clapped raw, voices were made hoarse as Circus slowly wrapped up and took a final bow. He and the rest of the clowns had to return four separate times for additional bows, to the point where the ringmaster had to shoo them away and try and get the audience to calm down enough to announce the next act that would amaze and astound them.

After the act, Circus sat outside of his living quarters and relaxed. It was too early to take off his costume and makeup, not after one of the best performances he ever gave. His friends who watched in the rafters and off on the sides praised him endlessly, absolutely shocked at his ability to overcome it all and continue on. He was made for show business after all, and was a master in his own right.Eventually, the music stopped and the spotlights went out as the show ended. With everyone in the audience and cast alike finally tucked away in bed, Circus was left to his own thoughts. Ages ago he would have been content enough that he had surpassed even what he was capable of. But, out of the hundreds of faces he delighted that evening, there were a dozen or so standouts that remained mostly unaffected, even ambivalent about the whole affair.

Circus promised himself he would do better, go above and beyond to make even those people into fans.

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