'Big Top' by Michael Conley

No bringing knives into the big top, they’d insisted, so in our pockets, secretly, we stitched our keys through our fingers and set to punching holes in the canvas when the time came.

It was so nice, for once, to feel part of some bigger project: oh sure, we all could’ve pointed to CVs saying able to work equally well as an individual or as part of a team, but until then none of us had really appreciated the meaning of that.

Obviously, some of us were better at punching holes than others, either through superior technique or simply sharper keys and it was hard not to a) quietly notice that and b) in our heads plan out a hierarchy based solely on merit, for after.

The clowns egged us on, even the sad ones.

Somebody shouted to the ringmaster, smiling-threatening, hey, cool coat, which left him no choice but to hand it over.  Without it he dithered, naked as a shaved cat. 

Nobody said to the strongman cool leopardskin loincloth, even though it was cool, but he helped anyway, bending the tent’s metal struts like they were old celery. 

Then the silent collapse, like being inside a head with suddenly no skull.  It was darker than we’d anticipated.  The sick feeling of a bad idea well-executed bubbled in our guts.  There was plenty of sawdust.

Outside, the famous bear from the poster paced back and forth, sniffing at invisible spots in his cage, then laid down to stare at the moon.