All Write, Already!

Little boys dream of running away to join the circus. This little person had lived in the circus all his life. He wanted to run away to join the rest of the world.

He'd learned and performed nearly every job one can do in a circus. Some of them were difficult for a man of his size, but no one eats while there's work to be done. That was the rule of the show. Everyone works, or everyone starves. It was a good rule, when you thought about it. Everyone worked hard and the community policed its own slackers fairly well. From the top billed aerialists to the lowliest roustabouts, everyone pitched in until the work was done.

He wasn't leaving because the work was too hard, though. He was leaving because he was bored. He'd been born different than the vast majority of humanity. Vastly different... and yet, here he was; accepted, respected... normal. There was something wrong with this picture.

On his last day, he made the rounds. He said goodbye to the performers, the laborers, the animals, but he saved the sideshow barker for last. He owed a lot to the man who'd done the most to raise him.

"You're a fool, you know. The world will eat you alive." The barker's eyes didn't rise from the emery board he was sweeping across a corner of oft-bitten cuticle.

"It's a chance I have to take."

"That's ridiculous. You just can't pass up a chance to see what's on the other side of the canvas. You're a rube who can't wait to part with his money, but you'll be let down in the end. Rubes are always let down in the end."  The words were measured and calm, but the little man could hear the disdain in the barker's voice. There was no sense in trying to explain it to him. It would only seem like the pleading rationalization every rube makes to his companions before handing over the admission for the freak show. Every one of them says it. Every mark just has to see it.

"I just wanted to thank you, that's all. Thank you."

The little man turned and walked back to his duffel bag, waiting a few feet away. He'd bent to pick it up when he heard the barker's parting words, sneeringly delivered.

"Step right up! See the little man with the big ambitions! You always knew he would dance a merry jig if the right tune was played! Too good for the side show, but ready to be a freak show all on his own! Step right up and see the tiny jester be a BIG fool!"

The little man sighed and heaved his bag onto his shoulder. He'd have to revise his definition of normal.