POV Practice

George stared up at the woman far above his head, eyes wide as he watched her spinning midair. His breath caught as she grabbed the trapeze by just the tips of her fingers. Swinging in a wide arc across the tent, she pulled herself up so she was standing on the thin metal bar. George stood up too, despite his mother’s protests that the children behind him couldn’t see. He wanted to do that; he wanted to swing weightless across a tent full of people, hear them gasp as he swung overhead, twisting and twirling in impossible ways. Even though his mother pulled him down back into his seat and whispered a strict warning into his ear, George did not feel guilty or bad for disobeying. All he could possibly feel was exhilaration as he watched the acrobat perform another gravity-defying flip.

Katya performed another flip, her fingers almost slipping off the bar as she grabbed the next trapeze. She cursed the ringmaster under her breath in her native Russian. He was far too cheap to provide her with the rosin she needed, and there was no net beneath her like in practice. Katya tried to shake off thoughts of broken necks as she pulled herself up, her cold feet wrapping themselves around the fragile bar. She tried to forget where she was, letting her muscle memory take over and imagine she was back home, in her little family house outside Moscow. She visualized the walls of her bedroom, covered in flyers and posters for universities she never attended. In Katya’s imaginary bedroom she ignored the trophies and ribbons for gymnastics; they had only brought her troubles, not the money she needed. Bringing herself back to future and performing her next jump, she tried to empty her mind entirely. There was no point thinking of a home and future she was so far from.

From behind the curtain, Friedrich watched the beautiful Katya flip gracefully across the gap between the two trapezes. Friedrich remembered when he was the one flying through the air, in a time before his muscles and eyesight failed him. He was so happy, when the circus was just beginning, and he was a young man with dreams of world fame. But his time had passed, and now there was a new generation of young performers who had a chance to do what he couldn’t. But he knew Katya. He would watch her as she rehearsed, make sure he was the one to bring her water after shows, and sit outside her tent after curfew, hoping she would step outside and he could talk to her. And she didn’t want to stay at the circus or be a performer. He didn’t understand it really; who wouldn’t want to live in a circus, even if they weren’t allowed to ever leave? But whatever his angel wanted, she would get. He would end the circus. Freidrich held the lit match up to the butane he had thrown all around the edges of the tent before the performance, and crossed himself one last time.