Candy is a girl out of this world. Sweet and flavorful. She gives me clarity, and when I’m around her, I can breathe. It’s been two months since I quit Waffle House, and I’ve found a new home. You should all know that I really did join a circus. My life is literally a joke now, and it’s the fucking best.
Candy and I sit on a hill, pointing at stars, trying to find one of the Greats. I never was worth a damn at finding constellations. Candy laughs at me when I jump up, hooting and hollering about finding the Big Dipper.
“That’s not it fool!”
“Says the girl still wearing clown makeup.”
Candy grins at me mischievously. I find her most beautiful when she’s performing her act with her lion. This girl lives for danger. She’s short, petite, and her skin is yellow, golden in the spotlights. She’s all magic and light, and her pet lion, Claudius, is only comfortable and calm around her. Candy saunters over to me, still smirking, still weightless. Her brown hair flies in the wind, and for the eighth time in my life, I feel my heart throb esoterically. I do not understand why I fall so easily. I know this woman will ruin me. But yet, I let my body dance to the song of yearning love, and I push into her, she pulls back, and we tumble down the hill, giggling all the way in a rolling mess, under the glimmering night sky. At the bottom, our happiness is short-lived.
Tim Buck, our performance leader, is standing over us, his pot belly trying to reach down and pick us up from the soft ground. He’s repulsive, but damn can this man juggle anything you give him. I find it odd because he has the daintiest hands I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how he gets anything done with those infant hands.
“Okay, soldier boy, you need to practice jumping through the Ring of Fire,” he heaves out, no doubt out of breath from walking over here from our tent.
“Now?” I whine, checking my watch. It’s damn near midnight.
“Yes, now. Candy and her pussycat are doing it also. You’ll be in a joint performance tomorrow.”
Candy stands. “Buck, you know what happened to the last one. Senoj isn’t ready. Cladiuis isn’t ready.”
Tim Buck turns around, his rolly body jiggling, almost as if the wind is making it but I know he’s eaten too much cake and ice cream for the wind to even dream of pushing him anywhere. “I don’t give a rat’s ass. You two seem fine enough. Make that beast love him, or quit,” Tim Buck lumbers away.
Candy grimaces back at me. I’m going to die soon. Candy’s words almost make me piss myself. What happened to the last one? Did Claudius eat him? Is Claudius going to eat me?
Jamiel Jones the Writer 
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