An eclipse of white light slid across the gray sky and I thought back to my childhood days when beams from searchlights would sweep the sky to announce a grand event.
Sometimes the event would turn out to be nothing more than the opening of a new store, but there was always the chance...and hope... that tracking the light to its source would bring us to the tent flaps of a circus.
I was never sure which took more time, convincing my father to get into the car in the first place or finally rolling up to where the metal shells of the search lights rocked and pivoted on their base.
A circus was the best possible outcome. The searchlights were but a gateway to strings of lights and rows of sideshow booths leading up to the big top itself. Puffs of cotton candy bobbed in time to the strides of children gripping the paper tubes the candy was spun onto. Hawkers shouted out challenges to try a hand a knocking down stacked bottles or tossing rings onto bottle necks.
By the time I finally took a seat on the wooden bleachers in the big top I was already prepped to forget the everyday world for the duration of the performance.
No comments:
Post a Comment