[Author's Note: After a long spell of writer's block I've finally had the urge to write again! This is also my first story uploaded onto YWS so yay! Anyways...it's a bit confusing...and it's not that great I wrote it in around an hour and a half after a few days of thinking about. So enjoy and review please!]
I greeted the small audience with false confidence and a faltering smile as they slowly filed out of the tent. Others lagged behind in the seats - my disappointed fans I presumed. I bowed to the dwindling audience my pretense remaining intact as the familiar farewell music began to play. I turned to the stairs on cue and started my slow ascent gently caressing the cold metal that I would never feel again. My foundation was slowly crumbling with each painful step. Tears fell freely down my cheeks flooding me with the harsh remembrance of how easily the circus could do away with me.
I regained my composure as quickly as it had slipped away and continued walking up the stairs feebly attempting to regain the pretense I had previously flaunted. I finally reached the top and tried to stare past the blinding lights and tried to imagine my fans in puddles of tears. Although I desperately willed myself to do so, I could not. I had nothing to give to them and I hadn’t given them anything years. My routine progressively became careless and shorter and my once elaborate stunts were adopted by the lithe newcomers. I couldn’t help but wonder how they could support a disappointment such as myself.
I finally mustered up my courage and to take my last step forward upon the tightrope, swishing my weight for balance as best as I could remember from my fading, sienna memories. As I continued my light steps across the rope I heard hoarse screams fill the tent and a scrambling for the exit. I faltered on the rope, losing my balance and sense of thought, but quickly recovered. I gradually increased my pace over the rope out of fear. I coughed, suffocated my smoke and sound. I fumbled once more, and the rope snapped and swung towards the ground. I was falling and I could barely feel it. I felt dead as the heat caressed me. I was rapidly nearing the destructive monster below me….and when I finally hit the fire and I felt alive once more.
I was alive in reality, but perhaps not in the way I had imagined. I closed my eyes, hoping to find this all to be another horrible nightmare. Hoping desperately that I would wake up in what I once thought a tent to small for the most popular performance, but instead I woke up on the cold asphalt in an alleyway with nothing but a frayed, damp blanket and a small knapsack containing my belongings. I had thought the circus needed me, but instead I needed the circus. I was nothing more than a discarded coat. I was frayed, and a size too small for the circus. I fit wrong and I was easily replaceable by a newer model and now I was alone and wash-out. A simple smudge in the circus’s history.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hello!
RandomTalks here with a short review!
This was a well-written and intriguing piece, and I loved the environment you have managed to create with your words. Even though, you started right in the middle of a scene with no prior information on the narrator or his background, you still managed to pull us right in without missing a beat. You captured his emotions rather beautifully, thereby building a connection between the character and the reader.
I liked the feeling of turmoil that you presented through the narrator's thoughts and emotions. Unfortunately, I think here is where we needed a little more background or information to actually understand where he was coming from. We understand what he is thinking and feeling but we cannot empathize with him unless we know why. It is difficult to feel for someone when you don't why they are feeling that way. From what I understood from the text is, this is kind of the narrator's last walk on a tightrope as he has been replaced by new and much younger models. That would explain the somber edge to his thoughts and the feelings of grief and loneliness that is evident in the story.
Especially, the part where he fell from the rope and into the fire. I did not get what happened very well in that part, and I think you could clarify it for your readers. It was a little difficult to understand, especially because the narrator was so heavily submerged in his own thoughts and feelings that the rest of the story that happened outside of his head ended up feeling a little abstract and unclear.
The ending however was a little abrupt and it felt like dumping cold water on a sleeping person. The transition happened so quickly that I thought I had missed an entire paragraph between the fire scene and the one with the narrator waking up on the sidewalk. Makes me wonder if it was a dream all along or if we just skipped to a moment in time when the narrator had already lost his job and failed to create any kind of another identity in the world. The theme was very well presented, but I feel that you could have done a better job of weaving the story of the narrator around it.
Here are some typos I noticed in the story:
You are missing a 'for' before 'years'.
It will be 'too'.
I think you meant 'by' here in place of 'my'. Because, otherwise the sentence really doesn't make much sense.
The typos don't really cause much harm but they do tend to stick out from the main narration. You could also take a look at the punctuation in the story, there were certain instances when the sentences were in a dire need of a comma to create some kind of a break between the words.
Keep writing and have a great day!
Ahhh... I was thinking something along those lines. A way you might want to clarify that (if you get "unlazy" as you put it) is to start out with the reality, shift into the dream, then in the end switch back to reality.
PLEASE don't throw this idea out, it could be really good with just a wee tad more work!
I don't see why nobody else has reviewed this yet...
Good Luck and please PM me if you post a new version!
See ya around,
~Azila~
Thanks. Yeah..it's a bit confusing and I'll clarify.
I don't think it was harsh it was very helpful actually! So, I might edit today if I get unlazy or I might just think about or throw it out.
This is her last, farewell performance at the end of the show (the ending acts are usually the worst in some circus and the a majority of the crowd starts to leave then). She's getting on in years and she's not quite as good as she used to be because the harsher training methods they used are now catching up with her and she's slowly replaced by younger performers that can do new, amazing stunts and can add more to the more modern appeal their aiming for (it's a rather small circus steadily growing in popularity).
Anyways, this is completely a dream. The fire is what snaps the rope because it represents destruction in change from dreamology or what not. Also it never happened either. She was too proud to be the last performance and she was so washed-up I doubt she even had fans. It's a complete dream except for the last paragraph where we find out she became a hobo or something xD I really don't know for sure this idea is pretty half-cocked..
I know what you mean. I usually just use third person and I've been playing around with first person (a friend's idea was to try to write something in a different way then I usually do to break writer's block). Yeah, I'm gonna clarify that a bit more. Also, I might change the end because I don't think it fits. I just wanted a few reviews for ideas of how to start editting (I just ran spell check over it and didn't read it).
Thank you for the review!
Very interesting! It's a wonderful idea, but I think it could have been executed a tad better in places.
It might just be me (very possible, mind), but I got kind of confused... how come she lost her talent for tightrope walking? Why did she fall onto fire? I understand that you're trying to be a symbolic in places, (which is a great thing to do, don't get me wrong) but we also need some logical explanation, other wise we're just left saying "wha...?"
Why are they filing out of their seats? Isn't the show still going on?? Please correct me if I'm being stupid, but this doesn't make much sense.
She knows that this is her last performance?
First sentence: you used "pretense" earlier. Try something different here. And also, it seems to me that she didn't lose her composure quickly before.
Second sentence: you use the word "tried" twice...
The first sentence doesn't make sense to me... what does smoke have to do with it?
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And in the end, do we figure out that it was all a dream? You might want to clarify that for the duller readers like myself
Overall: Very intriguing idea, but I think it needs more clarification overall. And also, I can see that it is trying to be emotional (with the tears and everything) and even though the plot is, the writing has a more journalistic feel. No, journalistic isn't quite the right word, and I'm too tired right now to think of what is. What I'm trying to say is that it seems a little bit dry. Like you're telling it from an outsider's point of view, not the protagonist's. Maybe the problem is that it is a bit too descriptive in places? Maybe try shortening the sentences and focusing more on emotion...?
I dunno, there are my two cents. I hope they help!
Please don't take anything harshly, their just suggestions
Let me know when you do a rewrite!!
~Azila~