The Clown Is Lost

Blackout. A blackout in my own head was scary. It’s like someone turned off the lights along with my senses. I’m only aware that I am not aware. It’s not like doing a flip on a trampoline; it’s like jumping on a trampoline, preparing for a flip but then midair I disappear, like I was never there. And that’s what happened when the ringmaster held a bull hook over my head.
I gasped, “Where I am?” I looked around. I was standing but how! The ground, the sky, everything was a sea of endless white.
“You’re right there” says a voice. I gasp, and I look around for the source of the voice. And behind me was a girl who looked exactly as I did. The only difference was that the girl’s outfit despite it being the same outfit I had on, its colors were darker, grayer, and older. The girl held her hands together in front of her. Her lips bend down slightly at the corners into a frown but her eyes were content.
“Who are you? Where am I?”My voice barely audible, I quivered and shook like a scared animal.
“I am you and we are here,” says the girl. Even her voice sounds exactly like mine.

“I am the you after the ringmaster hits you, Anna,” Her voice is tinged with hate as she says ringmaster.
I can already tell this girl, who claims to be me, and I have mutual feelings on the ringmaster, and”How is that possible?”
“I-I don’t know” The girl puts her hands on her neck. There’s a dark bruise all around it. I do the same when I lie. If this girl is really me she’s lying but knowing me it’s for a good reason, the reason must be really horrid if she can’t even tell me. But this girl might not be me.
”Am I dead?” Wasn’t I about to be hit by the ringmaster?
“No,” says the other girl.”I brought you here before anything happened to you”
I believe her. Nothing seems to hurt and but I still feel the fear of being hit by the bull hook. It feels like I’m still there, like the second before the nurse gives me a shot. Even the hairs on my arm can feel the needle’s inevitable destination. But here I am avoiding the inevitable. I remember that at that moment the ringmaster’s face looked like the devil himself.
“When he hits me w-what happens after that,” I whisper. I hate the ringmaster. I feel degraded, to almost be beat by a tool to discipline animals, I am not a animal or pet but I guess that’s what I am to the ringmaster.
“Don’t even think that, and don’t utter those words!” The girl is shaking. She slowly walks over but I step back out of fear. “You belong to you. He taught us that!”
I realize not only has this girl read my mind but she knows about him, she knows about Bell.
“You must decide” she continues. I look around; I am still here and I don’t see any exits. This girl is my only way of leaving this place. What does she mean by decide? I thought she didn’t know anything about this place.
“Decide what?” I say, my body feels hot, and now I’m shaking too, I wish I could see him again. But where is he? Did the ringmaster get to him? No he’s safe I can feel it. I rub my stomach. It’s warm and I can almost feel little heartbeats beating along mine.
I try to sit down. I hesitate at first since there seems to be no floor just endless white, but I’m standing. So I bend my knees and slowly lay myself on the invisible ground. I’m relieved that I can sit. I fold my legs and pull to my chest.
“Fate,” The girl looks at me. Her eyes are narrow and serious.
“Fate?” I look up from my knees. My stomach begins to knot. I feel that this decision was more important than anything.
“Yes but in order for you decide, I want us to remember, when we were happy,” her voice holds a hint of melancholy.
“Why?”
“You must choose before time flows again,” The girl retorts.
My head turns to the right by some mysterious force. And I see a black dot that is gradually growing larger, “What is that?”
“That is you hour glass, Now tell our tale!”
The loudness of her voice makes me jump. It reminds me of my voice when I’m really serious. I shake my head this girl can’t be me. I have never been so…. lifeless. But I too would like to remember the happy times, the times with Bell.
I remember when we first met, “I was working in my father’s circus and I remember performing,” it was all coming back to her. Performing used to be my greatest joy that is until my mother left. “And I saw something strange in the crowd. A boy my age had his eyes on me. The intensity of his green eyes made me fumble” I stretched my legs out and continued my story.
” I didn’t like how those green eyes made me feel like I could have things I couldn’t,” I and the girl say this at the same time. How could she know those words? I’ve have only said in my own head. I whip my head around to look at her. She has the same look of melancholy on her face. She is staring at the black dot
The black dot was the size of a fist now.
“Please continue” She says still staring at the black space.
I hold my legs to my chest but I don’t hold them, this girl may truly be me. I continue for the sake of both of us.
” The ringmaster, he is not well. He thinks every talented thing is his forever especially me! Ever since my mother ran away, he doesn’t want to lose anything else. My mother was a horrid woman; she told me she was going out to fetch milk and never came back,”
These are secrets the ringmaster told me not to tell. I feel scared. Like he is watching ready to jump out at me and beat me for being a ‘Liar’. I hold my legs close to my face again and put my forehead against my knees.
“He’s not here,” The girl says, now looking at me.
“Really?” I say sarcastically.
“If there’s one place where he’ll never be, it’s here,”
I don’t understand what she means but her words make me feel better. Like whenever I try reassuring myself,”You really are me aren’t you?”
“I am,” she says with a smirk.
The black ball was her size now, the sense of urgency in me grows.
I understand now that this place makes me honest, a place where lies don’t exist. I don’t even have to lie about my father like usual. Strange; a place where I don’t have to lie anymore.
“After I had finished performing, after the show, that boy, he came up to me and he asked me for something that was not his,” I whispered, “It was us,” I almost hear his voice calling me. “I let him have me even though I was not mine to give”.
The Blackness seemed to eat the white but I don’t stop speaking.

“At first it was harmless outings after each show. At first I just wanted him to forget about me. At first I acted as boring. I tried to get him to tire of me. At first I was going to just have him believe I was his when I wasn’t, but then he made my mask fall off and brought me out, I become his and he became mine, But-,” I paused, this part it was bittersweet, but our story can’t stop now.
The black speck had grown to the size of what seemed like half the world, but I can’t stop, not now.
”But I had given him something that was not mine to give, even if its me, the rights of me were lost the minute momma left without me, We told him about that, told him everything, about our mother and everything else,” I realize that I’ve been talking like we are the same because….we are one, she really is me.
I lie on my back and remember his green eyes piercing me and his smile blinding me when I told him. I rubbed my stomach, I still could feel it, the life we had made.
”He said we should run away together and we said my father owned me, that we would see true hell if he caught wind about it. But he said he’d rather,’“have hell with me than heaven without me,”’ we say his words in unison.
I look at her and her eyes are watering and so are mine, “So we planned our escape, the ringmaster found out in morning practices. He saw the round of my belly and the smell of sick on my breath. He was so angry, He went ballistic, he was a bull, and he destroyed it all, the circus, the trampolines, the performers, the animals, and me? I remember the ringmaster over me with a bull hook in his hand raised over his head. I was sobbing and shouting,’ please, the baby!!’Then Bell ran towards me. I guess he didn’t get there on time since all I remember of that was the feeling of wind my way and they black I saw next and then…, I appeared here,” Tears were streaming down both her face and mine.
“You have to c-choose between the you that lives without her child and the you who dies without her child”.
“What?” I say through the tears
“In the moment the ringmaster hits you, someone in the same place as you must die” The girl whispers. “, Whether it is you or the baby, time must go on and a decision must be made,” She girl sobs.
“But in your time we are living. Which means the baby-“, she cuts me off panicked.
“Please I-I didn’t want to live the life that resulted in me being here, so I-“She stops and holds her neck with both hands and cries.
The bruise on her neck, it has imprints from what looks like a rope, I know what it is now.
“All ones the ones we love disappear that day. The ringmaster and his bull hook makes sure of it”, the girl looks at me. Her eyes are on me, wanting me to choose.

“You mean B-Bell too, that monster”, I understand why my other self did what she did. What else do you have when you no one else to love or to be loved by. I know what must be chosen now

I hugged my stomach, and shouted, “I know what I must choose, I choose ---------.I had made my decision, I waited for what happened next when you choose fate. My other self smiles and disappears into shimmering dust. The Black had overtaken the white and began eating her to but she knew that it was alright. Everything hummed, it sounded like a collective buzz. I hear a faint ‘Thank you’.

Epilogue:
“Why is my name Annabelle”, the young girl asked her green eyed father.
Because my name’s Bell and your Mother’s was Anna”
“Do you miss her?”
“Terribly”
“Oh” The little girl turns towards her father, “Was she talented”
“She was the best in the whole big top”
“What was she?”
“A clown”