Hi there, this is my first post. I'm so excited! I've read lots of forums posts and I can see the work here is really up to standard and I have a lot to live up to. The passion for writing is something everyone on here seems to have and I share that too! Please give this a read and any constructive criticism would be fantastic!!! Thank you!
Chapter 1
It's cold. Very cold. As deep as I am in this mountain cave, I can still hear the vicious howling wind roaring outside; still see the small patch of light obscured by sheets of snow; still smell the shark tang of spilt blood and still feel the cold.
I sincerely regret hurling those fistfuls of cash, piles of jewels and countless gold coins over the peak - I could have burnt them to keep warm now. This bundle of sticks isn’t much good. It's enough to let me what I'm writing at least. With any luck, I will have told everything before sunrise, I don't sleep. I have never been less tired in my life. Which is odd considering the run from the angry mob, the journey back to earth and the hike up the mountain. You'd think I'd be exhausted. Quite a lot of things you think do often turn out to be wrong. First impressions, for example. Throughout my life, most of my first impressions have been catastrophically incorrect. As you will find out later, once I stop rambling. I don't know how even at a time like this I can still manage to stray off the path and meander into a whole different topic. I suppose that way I never run out of conversation. You'd think (there’s that expression again!) that I would be an unstoppable blabbering chatterbox but actually I am somewhat of a shy fellow. I can write openly now since I plan to follow suit of the money and gems over the side of the mountain so I don't really care anymore. The best thing in my life is now gone. The one thing in my living was living for, my hope, my future.
My Delilah.
Returning to my shyness, when I first met Delilah, I could barely stutter a good evening. But, as time went on and my love for her grew, I came to realise she was the only person I had ever been completely myself with. When I was talking to Delilah, I wasn't stumbling, bashful Aveeno. I was cool; confident ... "Ave" as Delilah so often called me.
You'd think from my first name that I was from an obscure town in no way near you at all, maybe not even the same country. How many Aveeno's do you know? Well, for the first time, your the first impression was right. I was born in a small town called Ogunnaike in Russia. I can not tell you what it was like since I never left my home until I was four, I when I left it certainly wasn't around Ogunnaike. It wasn't even on Earth.
The memories of my Russian childhood are somewhat shady; the long period of time has worn away at my memory like the tide lapping at the beach, ridding it of sediment and such other debris slowly, increasingly more with each year.
Compared to the rest of my life, my first four years spent in Ogunnaike were quite normal. But my upbringing was actually fairly unorthodox. I can say with a great amount of blind confidence that you had a very different life growing up than I did.
I was brought up in circus, the grandest and biggest in all of Russia. Well that's what the ring master, Pierre, used to say. Circ du Pierre was not at all grand and it wasn't even that big. True, it was a circus of whimsy and wonder. Sometimes, if I close my eyes, the strange blinking lights beneath the curtains of my eyelids made by my pulsating blood can be mistaken for the winking lanterns strewn across the midnight blue and jet black striped canvas. Some lanterns had shawls draped over them to switch the whitish yellow light to deep shades of purple, red and green.
The acts in the show were far less elegant. Cruel animal acts, forced do to stunts far from their natural actions; poking fun at 'freaks' who were actually lovely people born with the hideous burden of their birth disfigures and loud nauseating clowns with their masks of make up shielding their mood, a painted toothy grin could hide the fact to an audience when inside, they were dying of misery.
Pierre would parade around the ring, introducing each act with showbiz gusto, emphasising his seductive native French accent- which had long been blurred away by his years roaming Russia - and twirling his black moustache with a fake mysterious look of curiosity.
Once again, at first Pierre seems friendly and jolly, so don't let me tarnish this cheerful image of the round French man, as false as it maybe. But you would have second thoughts after seeing him brutally murdering the predecessor of my act, a monkey, since he did not perform the act right.
The only whimsy and wonder in Circ du Pierre that was genuine were the acrobats. An all female act in costumes of great lavish and sparkle, the twists, turns and jumps the women would push themselves too helped me remain the person I am today, not one of Pierre's crushed souls.
My mother was one of the acrobats, a harlequin girl. Young and beautiful, Pierre found her when she was sixteen, serving vodka shots in an old club. She would doll up the story for me, leaning far into my hand crafted cot (made mostly from popcorn containers), her eyes bright, telling me how Pierre had made all her dreams come true and without him she wouldn't have met the love of her life and then had me.
Ah yes, my father, the chief knife throwing act. Never once hit a girl, eyes closed or open, throwing with his hands or feet, singing cabaret or not. My mother was dazzled by his showman charm and chiseled good looks and fell madly in love with him. As much as I regret to say, my father evidently did not return the favour. It is to my belief that I am a product of their one night of steam passion to which my father was so soused with vodka, so much so that it drove him to barely remember the next day what had happened. After my mother had told him gushingly, he put up with it, but once she told him she was pregnant with me, he had packed his bags promising he would return once day but for now he must peruse his dream of owning a cheese factory.
I struggle to believe this story now I am older and wiser but being only two and a half years of age at the time, I blindly followed this tale my other told me.
So now we had nothing left but each other. And the circus. We weren't a traveling circus; Pierre did not have the money.
"Let the audience travel to us!" he would boom in his throaty voice. Pierre tired to create an uncle like relationship with me which you'd think was sweet and caring of him given I was now fatherless. But his fingers which scrabbled at my neck in a hop to tickle me were cold and scratchy, far from bringing any mirth to my face and his broad grin was a pumpkin's leer with two flickering yellowish eyes.
I also had several nicknames. Champ Tiger, Scout, and his personal favorite, one announced on a projecting megaphone in the big top night after night.
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I present to you, the human cannon ball!"
Yes, the grand finale was me. Why me? The same reason my mother was allowed to keep me, unlike other children born into the circus who were left with the tigers; and that was if Pierre was in a good mood.
I was a curiously small child so I could fit into the cannon easily along with the dummy baby, which I would have to shove out with all my might. The dummy was attached to a thin wire, unable to been seen by the audience. It would then fly around the canvas, performing all sorts of flips whilst I hurriedly had to light gunpowder and release it to represent the cannon shooting me out realistically. The smoke used to choke me in my already confined space which was hard enough to breathe in.
After about two minutes of watching 'me' (really the dummy dressed up in the same costume as me and a blonde curly wig perched upon its head) fly around the tent. 'I' would zoom back to the mouth of the cannon, where the real me had to narrowly dodge it - it came in with quite some dangerous force - and crawl out of the cannon as though it had been me who had performed the act all long. I would have to smile and wave merrily at our truly dimwitted audience who would burst into applause. Then Pierre would swoop me up into his arms, a vice like grip and hold me high above his head like a trophy.
Cameras would flash, click and whirr but I did not grimace or cry. I could see my mother up in the rafters, her face shining with pride as though her son had really soared like a bird from the cannon.
Oh, I do miss my mother now. I do wish I could have said goodbye. I wonder where she is now, is she still in Russia? She might even be dead; Pierre beat anyone even to death if they weren't good enough. My mother was an exceptional performer, the best harlequin, but her acrobats may have be somewhat faltered due to grieving her son. They believe I'm dead. Or they may even believe in the magic, though never understanding it of course. I may even have created a tourist attraction. I wish I knew.
That reminds me, here is what happened.
It was peculiar how I went missing. I was due to do the act as normal. I wave and winked cheekily at the audience for the 1410th time who stared back at me blankly, their faces pale and ghostlike in the eerie glow of the big top. I then crawled inside the protruding cannon, not knowing that the small circle of light I peered up at would be the last I saw of Circ du Pierre and the last I saw of earth for a very long time.
Sitting dully cramped under the suffocating dummy, I listened to Pierre's muffled impressive ramblings to the audience and the distant fanfare music playing in the background. I groped inside my pocket absentmindedly and drew out the five-sided die I had found earlier that day whilst toddling around the empty stands before I was swept away to make up.
The die had five different symbols on each side, though at the time I had no clue as to what one meant. I fiddled with it now in the dark cannon but then accidentally dropped it into my lap. The die started emitting bright blue sparks and burning bright gold. I hastily shielded it with my hands but Pierre's voice did not falter and did not seem to notice anything. I opened my cupped hands and peeked inside.
The symbol showing on which he die had landed on was of two triangles, balanced on each others tips and a squiggly cross going through them. A chanting beautiful voice issued from the die.
"Make a wish..."
I jammed the die under my backside in the hope that it may be quiet but the singing continued the same three words. Pierre's voice was rising and a drum roll began, indicating my cue.
"Make a wish..."
I peeked at the die again, willing for it to shut up. The symbol was now glowing red.
"Make a wish..."
I thought about how much I hate Pierre, hated the circus, and hated all the sick performances.
"Make a wish..."
I squeezed my eyes tight shut and wished with every fibre of my being.
I opened my eyes to find myself hurtling backwards, spinning rapidly through a whirl of colours I had never seen before. I tried to scream but my voice was lost among the strange whooshing noise all around me, pressing upon my ears.
Then, as suddenly as it had all started, I fell face down on all fours, onto a cobbled street, panting for breath and not having the slightest idea what had just happened.
9/10