Budapest » [Clintasha]

Chapter Forty-Six: New Horizons

Where was I to go? Reaching the perimeter of the park, I tugged my sweat-damp boots on – still slick from that night's performance – and knotted all the ribbons into bows so my sweat-soaked garbs didn't look as drab. I still looked like a laundry basket that had got up and walked: flecks of mud splatted on my leggings and sweat patches soaked under my arms. Not to mention the exuberant colours – faded from use – looked comical outside of the carnival setting.

I reached the iron railings and clambered over like a hooligan, the sash around my middle catching on one of the spines. Hissing with frustration, I tugged it away; leaving a ripped portion of purple fabric impaled on the fence.

Landing in the main street, I took one final peep over my shoulder at the carnival. It was reminiscent of the first time I'd seen it, all the colours stark against the steel and concrete of the city, the lights erupting into the night sky.

I was leaving another home behind. Another family. I felt a stabbing pain in my chest at the feeling of desertion and a prickling in my eyes as tears began to well. What had been the best chapter of my life so far had come to a close, through no choice of my own. I was leaving behind a family, friends, a girlfriend.

Mentally, I rebuked myself. I rebuked myself for thinking that I ever belonged with the misfits at the circus, for thinking that they would ever accept me, for thinking that the circus was my home. Frustration forked through me and I clenched my fists, tears of anguish raining from my eyes.

I was snapped out of my wistful stupor as a pedestrian bustled by, shouldering me out the way.

"Watch where you're goin', kid!" They yelled, flipping the birdie as they rejoined the throng of people traversing the midnight streets.

I didn't look back. I couldn't. I hung my head and walked away, mopping up the tears with a mucky hand.

Aimlessly, I trudged with the strangers, the anonymous faces of New York City. Without it's ambience, the city was but a mass of flaring lights and grey pillars. The cold night air, poisoned with the taste of fumes and garbage and sewage, was humid as I breathed it in. The tarmac still held the heat from the day and the warmth radiated from beneath my feet.

I turned down street after street, avenue after avenue, the soles of my shoes wearing thin. A searing pain was shooting up my calves and my legs soon felt leaden – my body was a burden to me. The weight of my make-shift knapsack and bow and quiver began to eat into my muscles and I hunched over. The city rewarded me with no respite, strangers bumping into me carelessly, cars trying to run me down when I was too slow to cross at traffic lights and passing people turning their nose up at my rough visage.

I couldn't wander the city forever, and spotting a quiet alleyway, not quite as damp as most, not overflowing with bin-bags from rotten dumpsters, I settled down. Pressing myself into a corner, I shut my eyes, allowing the silence and the sightlessness to wash over me; every now and then the light of the back of my eyelids was intersected by a shadow of a passer-by and soon I drifted off to sleep, teeth chattering in my skull and horribly damp.

I was awoken by the first shaft of daylight that darted between buildings, the city no kinder than the night before. There was a dull ache that had settled into my bones and my joints clicked as I swayed to my feet. I gathered together my possessions, by sheer dumb luck not pilfered and slung them on my person.

What the daylight had revealed – beyond the abundance of people now crammed in the streets – was the building opposite. By some miracle, I found myself a block down from the Bishop Publishing Firm.

My mind pulsed with possibilities.

Looking down at my dishevelled body – my circus clothes now drenched with more than sweat and mud, I was praying it wasn't pee – with my uncut hair hanging in my face, I realised I wasn't fit for going anywhere near the suave offices.