by Chris Fletcher

Created on: May 01, 2008

Popcorn.

This seat, it itches.

I wish I had the inclination to get annoyed about that right now.

The man to my right, I don't know who he is. The stark tan line on his ring finger screams Weekend Father almost as loudly as the errant child by his side. His expression is glazed, and I find myself envious of wherever it is his mind is roaming it's not here, not with the crowds or the animals or even his own daughter.

It's somewhere quiet, I'll bet.

Somewhere I would want to be.

The Fat Woman to my left, she is not so much eating her popcorn as violently inhaling it. Her hand is a ceaseless bucket-to-mouth-to-bucket metronome. The lower half of her face contorts grotesquely as she obliterates the condemned kernels.

Obliterate. Pulverize. Masticate.

Masticate rhymes with masturbate. Ha.

Masturbation makes me think of sex makes me think of happiness makes me think of Elizabeth makes me think of the crosswalk on the corner of Forty Fifth and Astoria.

"What do you want to do tonight?" I had asked.

"Movie?" she'd replied.

A horn sounded. It drowned quickly in the disjointed symphony of rush hour traffic.

"Again?"

"Okay," she had said. "Oh, I have an idea. The circus is in town how about that?"

There was a sharp screech of rubber on asphalt, and a huge yellow something swerved so close that, for a split second, I could clearly see my reflection in the scratched paintwork.

It took her away, then. Suddenly, violently. She was stolen from me by a battered yellow shark with fluffy dice swaying behind the windshield.

That was two weeks ago. Right now, a fluffy, greasy popcorn bounces off my lap; a survivor of the massacre beside me. Sweet, terrible freedom.

I crush it underfoot.

From where I sit, a faceless body in a crowd of thousands, I see an arena bustling with life. The cheap seats offer such a panoramic view, I almost feel important again surveying the activities.

In the center of the action, a group of brightly dressed, impossibly small bodies arrange themselves into intricate structures. Clambering up and over one another, they smile white flashes as the sinews of their arms betray the effort of their craft.

Spaced around the arena, a lion, an elephant and a seal perform tricks. Animals that seldom share the same continent are wearing shining collars and identical expressions.

Clowns did this to us they seem to be saying. Clowns!

Bound within a cage of spectators, their natural instincts squashed for the amusement of strangers, I feel suddenly very sorry for them. They should be given just one final burst of freedom, a chance to become tomorrow's headlines.

I want to throw bricks at them. Give the poor things an excuse.

The Weekend Father lifts his pigtailed offspring deftly from her chair and onto his knee. He seems to have returned from his imagined terrain, finally enjoying the time he has. She giggles as he bounces her up and down.

The Fat Woman unceremoniously drops her popcorn bucket, which halts its roll at my foot. She clamps her hand around a vat of soda and grins uneven teeth at the tottering formation of acrobats.

My seat still itches horribly.

The lion sneezes and, curiously, the crowd applauds him for it.

All of this seems to distant from where I am now.

I'm done here, I think to myself.

With this seat, these animals, these people.

With a lot of things.

I hear the bottle of pills in my pocket. The rattling sounds like encouragement.

"How was the circus?" Elizabeth will ask later, when we are finally together again.

"You didn't miss much," I'll tell her.

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