Don't Look Down

[Amethyst]

"Don't look down."

I remember crossing the balance beam for the very first time, my father's arms perched around me, ready to catch me in a heartbeat, should I lose my footing. And that was the advice he gave me: “Don't look down, because if you look down, you'll be scared, and fall.” I was five, feet smaller than the width of the beam itself- hardly a challenge, I thought- why shouldn't I look down? I didn't, but still my father sweated bullets as he tailed me from one end to the other- all heart-wrenching eight feet. But, of course, I effortlessly made it across. And I didn't think anything of it for a very long time.

The months that followed took me to the beginning of the end: Pitched up in what was once an empty lot was the place that would become my home- bright, vivid and extravagant. But at the time it was anything but home. “Home” was quiet and empty, with just my father and I. Here, the bleachers were filled top to bottom, not a seat to be spared in a sea of spectators. Spot lights shone in the eyes of every clown, roadie, animal, stuntman, and of course, the ringmaster. The master of ceremonies took the microphone with a charisma I had never seen, energy infectious, and just the timbre of voice to make you feel right at ease. The crowd roared a hollow and harmonious note that echoed from the faraway horizon of nameless faces.

The cheers, the lights, the people... Everything was in exotic contrast to the isolation I knew awaited me when my father and I returned home. Home, where only he and I would be, after this audience had long been dispersed and forgotten. Just my father, who, to his credit, did all he could for me. But all he could do would fall short against the pure sensational rush and dramatic grandeur of the ring. Of course, the tent vanished, packed into just another moving van on its way to just another city, and so I was denied that mirth for the remainder of my childhood. I would meet it again- this I swore to myself. And I did- This time determined to stay with it, perhaps out of respect for my childhood dream, perhaps on a whim. Either way, it was then that I stepped into the ring so many years later, only for the second time, but the first of many more to come. It was a new home in that spotlight- at first.

"Don't look down," they told me- while the crowd looks up. To the masses' credit, it's hard enough not to, when the largest ornament of the ring is a massive metal poll, towering above and protruding from the cold cement below my feet. The pole hangs over tilting only slightly, countless feet in the air, the jagged iron tip chaotically swaying under the weight of its own magnitude. A ladder is carelessly slung upon it through a means which I cannot fathom, rung after crooked rung, moving up the chipping and grotesque striped blue and red paint that was slopped onto the cold steel. At first I pitied whoever had to climb such a mess. Then I was told that I was to be that person, and I wished someone would pity me.

To my relief, I was to go nowhere near that monstrosity of a construction for a good while. I was instead lead into a separate area at back where a wire was strung from one stake to another- a training step- where if I fell, crossing from end to end, the only thing to be lost was a foot of height, not my life such as from the top of the tent inside. The high wire act- a classic for any circus worth its unicycles. I was the lucky fool to do it this time- And my instructor? He left me out back with the set up, told me to practice with no more guidance that the endlessly generic and useless phrase- “Don't look down.” No matter, it was close enough to the balance beam, just thinner, and longer... I was up, across and down before I knew it.

And here I am now. The rope is taut, strung from one platform to another. The ladder was jarring enough, three hundred rungs into the air on the striped red and blue rickety metal pole. It jerks just gently enough when I climb it never to let me be comfortable with the climb, nor sure that I would fall. And at the top, there's only about three square feet to make get cozy, take a breath, make a wish and count to three. Some home, I thought. The drum roll crescendos and explodes into silence. The crowd is watching, waiting...

"How does she do it?!" the children marvel. Their father leans back in amused contempt, no longer enthralled by spectacle he had seen countless times with the same star-struck eyes his sons have. He chuckles and lies, "I don't know." I know. Practice. This is hundredth time I climbed this latter and heard the drums, the music, giddily playing, track 03- reminiscent of a top that's not quite sure whether it wants to spin forever or fall down, motionless- a track that, for that reason, is endlessly familiar to me.

The last ninety or so climbs have been nothing. Up the ladder. Across the rope. And down again. The crowd marvels at each one- different faces, to be sure. And why? There is risk involved, but what do they want? For me to make it to the other side with confidence, with certainty, and a spring in my step, chest thrust out in pride. Take a courtesy, and down I go. Or would they rather me fall? Half way across, and I lose my concentration. And the next thing I or anyone knows, I'm half way to the floor, the air rushing past my face and life flashing before my eyes. But if they have a net- and they should, of course, but not having yet fallen, I cannot be entirely sure that they do- and it catches me, and everyone sighs in relief.

It's not how you land. It's how you fall. It doesn't matter to the crowd if the net catches me, or if I hit the cold cement floor and leave a blood-stain as my memoir. Both moments are resolved, and neither have much impact at all on the following moments: In both cases, the crowd will sigh, either in relief or despair, and the show will go on. But should I break upon the ground, it's not important. I was less than a face to them. I am a picture that moves across the line, or doesn't, and is replaced before the next show, by another girl with no aim who will be lead out back and show two stakes and a wire and told to knock herself out. Curious that in my new home, not one person would even know so much as my name. No, the landing doesn't matter- the tension is in the fall. Everything is in the fall. Every emotion in the entire show is overshadowed by the fall.

Of course, I am instructed not to fall. I am instructed to move gracefully across the line, only appearing as if I would fall in the midway point. The audience invariably gasps, and I invariably, effortlessly reach the other side. They sigh again, perhaps some of them wishing I had taken the plunge. I am instructed to place one foot after the other, time after time, and practice this on a wire suspended only one foot above the ground, not three hundred. Most of all, however, I am instructed not to look down. And in not looking down, I cannot be reminded of that which gives cause to the entire show. And there is no emotion anymore. Every emotion in that show was replaced by what some would call "skill." I am instructed to take this skill, and turn it into an emotion within the audience: Anxiety, shock, awe and fear- when I am denied any glimpse of that emotion myself.

"Will she make it, dad?" a son asks. "I don't know," he repeats, trying to convince himself. "Watch and see." The children are amazed- so easily pleased. Perhaps awe is only naivety; a failure to realize the unsurprising truth behind an occurrence that is not quite so special. Or perhaps I am, myself, just jealous, brimming with a yet undiscovered envy that they are the ones engaged and enlivened with the prospect of a woman stepping across a wire hundreds of feet in the air- that they are full of mirth, cast with suspense at the potential potential of demise when her unpracticed toes tip the balance, and she falls with a scream to her death below, when I am the one living it. And she feels nothing beyond boredom.

She's bored with walking a line she has walked hundreds of times before- having started when she was six on a balance beam wider than her feet and already then she was bored while her father stared on in pride- only she has to climb a few rungs to do so now, and a few more people have come (and paid good money, at that!) to watch. What is it they're really watching then? What is the difference between that and the practice set-up behind the tent? The climb. That is the only time there is a hint at emotion- and the pole shaking just gently enough when I climb it never to let me be comfortable with the climb, nor sure I would fall. And thank God.

Everything is in the climb. It's how high the wire is, and what's underneath. It's the way my hand locks against the wooden base and slips below my eyes as a shiny slipper propels me further and further up, and how the metal rod on which the ladder is built quivers, and how I shake- much more so. The day my nerves become more stable than the pole- shaking less, even more static as a performer- is the day I will die. Be that when this crooked steel finally collapses for lack of structural support, or when I quite deliberately leave, for lack of love for anything that is heralded as special in this world- Special, such as a father taking his children to a circus for the first and last time. I will not fall until I stop shaking. And today, I am still.

Of course, I am instructed, "Don't look down." Eyes forward. Always focus on the ending goal. Reach the other side. Wait until the performance is over. Wait until your paycheck in two weeks, and save for several months to buy the new shoes you wanted. Wait. Look forward, not down. This is what everyone says. Always driven solely by the end- by the landing. They want me to land, not climb, not fall. And everything in between is just empty time- time wasted as I am moved across a line. My feet so used to the "occasion" that it hardly feels different anymore. I have to look down to remember that there is nothing but a wire beneath me.

I have to look down. "Don't look down," or you'll fall. Is that it? But for once, just for something different, I look straight down. I see my feet, laced in shoes that I've worn for the same show week after week. And they step out on to the wire. Focusing on the tips of my toes, I nearly forget the line. I know it's there, I can quite clearly see that there is no floor below me- not for hundreds of feet. And now, I feel alive. This becomes my show again. I am the one stepping across the wire, not the doll trained and drilled to pass through without a hitch. I am human again.

Don't look down... not because you'll lose your focus- but because it's invigorating- staring perfectly boring gray cement as a crowd of thousands, two young children and a father who couldn't fall if his life depended on it stare at me... "Or you'll fall." Looking down doesn't cause anyone to fall. Looking down itself does not bend the dimensional gravity or knock one off balance... The only explanation, as I am witnessing- no, for the first time since I can't remember when- experiencing, is that looking down makes one WANT to fall... To feel the rush on your cheeks, the air flying past, and world slipping out of my control.

Half way across the line, my neck is craned to gaze as far to the floor as I possibly can. And I am quite sure that the director will have a something to say about this, and I am also quite sure that I couldn't care less. I don't care- I am isolated, alone in my freedom, the center of the crowd, star of my own show, and alive at last. The slate of the cement is far more colorful than the awful striped red and blue nightmare of a support pole. And I wonder, "why go on?"

Half way across the line, I forget what I had been instructed to look forward at for so many times. I step, staring down, carefully stepping no where near any wire. My foot lands on nothing and falls, and I follow, and I fall. And I lived that fall like no other woman had lived before my end

[N8theGr8]

I'm not joking when I say you could publish this. This is not writing, it's pure poetry; a masterpiece carved out of literature alone. But then...I wouldn't expect anything less of you, Ame.

[Mashew]

Awww ame I love it lol but why does it looks so familiar??

[Amethyst]

Thanks for reading, guys, and double thanks, N8, although it's far from a masterpiece. Consider it thoughts, characterized.
Mashew... Familiar how? I posted it on facebook too so unless you saw it on there- otherwise, I dunno?

[Mashew]

Probably from failbook just thought. Heard it from my English 101 class

[Amethyst]

If this was in your English class, I'm terrified, considering I only just wrote it...

[Mashew]

I'd be more terrified since I was in English 101 last year...

[Maelstrom]

TL;DR, well, not all of it.

and to be honest, your style/verse kills me a little bit. Maybe it's just me, but your style is definitely flowery, perhaps for the sake of flowery. But then again, that's part of the dramatic effect you're building. You write in a first person narrative that is popular among contemporary writers while still sounding aloof from the whole thing sometimes. Perhaps that's also an effect you want, but it jars the flow of it for me. It's not exactly the flow of thought writing common to a first person narrative. And you're like me in that you string a LOT of ideas into single, lengthy sentences. There is much to say, and you really try to cram it in. Cuz it's all connected and all that, but it breaks up the flow.

maybe i'm just spoiled though by my easy read read magic and swordplay fantasy. shakespeare is not my homie.