The Juggler
On the sidewalk of a nondescript street of a fairly large city, a man drew from a cardboard box five wooden balls. He took a deep breath, donned a gleaming smile, and began to juggle. He began slowly, tossing the balls into delicate arcs, moving his hands with gentle precision. Remembering to breathe and smile, the man called out to every passerby who walked in front of what he called his stage.
"You, sir! You, ma'am! Plant your feet and prepare to watch a feat that few have seen before!" The flow of pedestrians continued with most not even caring to glance at the performance. Eventually, a sparse group had formed around him. Sparse, but enough eyes to satisfy the performer.
"Prepare, ladies and gentlemen, to be dazzled by the finest juggler in the world!" In an instant he sent two of the balls flying three stories into the air while keeping the others flowing in a constant little circle with one hand, until the moment the two from above were caught with his free hand. Here he found a beautiful rhythm. He could keep all the five balls in a state of constant motion in tight little circles and crisscrosses with such speed that the eyes could not follow, and without notice send them flying, seemingly scattering, stories into the air. Four, five stories? None in the little crowd could really tell.
The juggler, looking up, heard the clunk of change landing inside of his box. "Thank you, fine patron!" The juggler kept on smiling wide and tried to find the face of the contributor. With this second of distraction, a ball from above crashed onto his head and knocked him flat on the ground. He lay for a moment, trying to gather his senses, while hearing laughs and snickers and jeers all around him. He stood feeling dazed and flushed.
"Ah, just a small interruption in the show, everybody. Let's get back to it, shall we?" The juggler shuffled his feet towards the ball that had landed on his head, and bent to pick it up. He grasped it, but it did not budge from the ground, and he nearly toppled over himself when he tried to stand with it. Laughter grew around him. The crowd had grown after he had been struck to the ground, and these new sets of eyes witnessed only his humiliation. He did his best to smile at the crowd, before trying and again failing to lift the ball. He struggled more, and they laughed more. They laughed more, and the crowd grew. "A small... interruption... shortly, gentlemen..." He heaved until he was breathless, and soon his composure was gone. He fell to his knees, and then to his hands. He could hardly make out the insults now being hurled at him from the now substantial crowd.
He allowed himself to fall to the ground and roll onto his back. He stared deeply into the sky, trying to catch in his periphery the impression of the sun. He contented himself with catching his breath and composure while the crowd lost interest and slowly dispersed. He reminded himself of his age, and closed his eyes. I'll get them next time, he thought.
"This yours?"
He opened his eyes. Above him, holding his wooden ball, was a young girl. The sunlight lit the back of her head like an aureole.
"Little girl," he began, trying to shake away his daze, "how have you lifted that ball?"
"I grabbed it. It's yours, isn't it?"
"Yes, of course it's mine!" The juggler sat up, moved to his feet, and took the ball from the girl. It felt light in his hand. "But, how, tell me, did you turn it back to wood?"
The girl looked at the juggler in a way that made him feel stupid. He was about to continue his questioning when he noticed the state of her. Her clothes were covered in dirt and threadbare. Her hair a knotted mess that framed a gaunt face.
"What say you and I head to the diner up the block? I'll treat you to a sandwich, as thanks for returning my ball." He gathered the rest of the wooden balls from the ground, put them into his cardboard box and picked it up. "Right this way, ma'am."
The two sat across from each other at a booth inside the diner. The juggler smiled as he watched the girl devour her sandwich.
"How old are you, girl?"
She hesitated. "Thirteen."
"And how long have you been a juggler?"
She stopped chewing and looked up at him. "I don't juggle."
"I find that difficult to believe. What you did today is no small task. At the very least, I am certain that you must have at least one close relative who is a juggler. Clearly, it is in your blood."
"Don't juggle. Don't know my family."
"Well, that is a shame. But, I am quite certain of what I say. For you see, before you touched that ball and turned it back to wood, it weighed over fifty pounds."
She raised an eyebrow.
"That is right. You are a prodigy." He leaned over the table, close to the girl's face, and brought his voice down to a whisper. "Juggling is magic, misunderstood by today's world. Magic, yes. It is a magical practice which dates back thousands of years to the ancient Egyptians. Yes, the civilization that built pyramids with ten-ton blocks of stone. You may ask: How did they ever move such material? Why, by turning it into something else, of course, something light and airy. Helium, even, if one were skilled enough. And once the blocks were in place, they could turn it right back into limestone—or any thing they could have thought to make it, even a thing that the science of today would not deign to imagine. The magicians who constructed the pyramids were jugglers first, and engineers second." He saw an apprehensive face staring back at him. He was losing her, he knew. "Please, let me teach you. If nothing else, you may find it is not an awful way to make a living." He smiled and shook his cardboard box beside him to rattle the change inside.
"Is it? I saw you sleeping behind a dumpster last night."
He was taken aback, and adjusted himself in his seat. "Ah, well, at times I must make do with less than ideal housing." He shifted about. "Yet today I had the wherewithal to purchase sandwiches for the both of us. That is no small thing. Certainly, one of your standing can see the value in that."
She pushed the last bit of her sandwich towards him, a look of disgust on her face. "You have it. I know what's going on." She stood and made for the exit.
"Please, wait!" He rushed after her, but by the time he reached the street he saw her sprinting halfway down the block. He shouted towards her, "You're the only one I've met! Please!" Other than my mother, he thought.
Dejected, he returned to the diner to collect his things. Gone, when he returned, was the cardboard box with his meager change and wooden balls. Fear and agitation crept into his core. He scoured the diner and accosted other customers for his only valuable possessions, before the staff intervened and threatened to call the police.
Twilight had arrived by the time he found an out-of-the-way niche to spend his night. He sat against a wall and nestled himself. After all of these years, he had found another. At least, he thought, I know I am not truly alone. He closed his eyes and pondered what tomorrow would be like, what starting again from scratch would be like. He would have to use glass bottles again, for now. He laughed to himself, remembering how much he hated glass bottles—always unstable, ready to shatter in his hand if he did not manipulate them perfectly. Drifting to sleep after finding solace in his situation, he heard piercing screams
He stood and eased towards the sound. Across the street, down an alley, he saw the young girl struggling to break free from a man's arms. His heart skipped and he raced towards them, fear and rage and resolve all boiling over in him. Her screams turned to sobbing wails as the assailant dragged her into the alley. He closed the distance.
"Stop! Release her!"
"Who the fuck are you?"
"Release the lady." The juggler looked to the girl. In the disappearing twilight he could see the glistening of tears on her face, and a soft glow from her eyes.
The assailant, with one arm around the girl's neck, reached into his pocket and revealed a small gun. He pointed it at the juggler. "Fuck off."
For a moment, but only a moment, the juggler hesitated. Then, he sprung for the assailants gun, managing to grab his wrist and twist it towards the ground. The assailant was stronger than the juggler, but with two hands to the assailant's one it was an even fight. They cursed and wrestled with each other, their barely-lit limbs twisting and coiling in a blurry, sweaty knot. The juggler's arms ached trying to keep the gun pointed at the ground. He tried to look for the girl somewhere in the mess, when he felt the assailant's now-free hand around his neck. His neck felt like it might pop. His strength was sapped. His grip weakened. He felt something hard press into his abdomen.
"Fuck you." Bang. The juggler dropped to the ground. His ears rang. He felt warm. The silhouette of the assailant towered above him. The juggler turned his head slowly to one side, and looked down the street. There, sprinting towards the last of the twilight left in the horizon, was the girl. He smiled.
Bang.