Flaming Rings

A very short description piece.

An empty ring holds the memories of hundreds. Children, parents, animals, siblings. Once, it was alit with happiness. Joy. The lady in blue who spins and twirls, crumples herself into even prettier knots. She beams a smile and ignores the bead of sweat rolling down her temple. The horses rear and kick, neigh majestically, and race back to the ringmaster’s hearty, full laugh.

            But no more.

            The flames crack and snap the flimsy boards that held this freak show together. The trapezists �" hey, what’s goin’ on here? �" turn to stone when they rush in. The tigers sleep and the elephants cry out as the big top falls. The big ring, the big hoop, the big dream, seems so far away now. Practice and practice and practice got them nowhere. And with a stony silence, they turn and leave, having no idea where they will go. The light dies out with the flames. The clown with sad eyes and a smeared-on smile looks on, wondering where his life went wrong. His shoulders slump and his eyes dart from place to place, face to face, looking for some sort of silver lining. The light flickers against his ghostly grimace. When the embers die out, so does his life’s work.

            Darkness falls.

Author's Note

Hey! Wrote this for an assignment. It's not a story or anything, we were simply supposed to describe an image in our head. Tell me what you think! :)

Reviews

[roarke]

Too many circus peanuts....lol
Seriously, this exercise seemed to light up some flowing inspiration. Keep following it and see we're it leads, that's where the fun will be.