I feel like I’m ready to be towed away to the retirement home swathed in orange knitted afghans. My toes ache. There’s an unnatural crick in in between my shoulder blades. My insides were apparently replaced with rocks last night, while I was dreaming of fire-colored snakes and future possibilites.
I think I have decided what I want to do with my life, and this knowledge I gained from a Spanish, silvery street performer.
Yesterday I wore my gray sweater, slipped my brother’s iPod down my shirt (the cord resting against my skin in a shivery, slippery way that made me feel like an automaton) and walked to the city center. Halfway there, I encountered the typical entertainers you so often see in these chewed-up-and-spat-out metallic towns, watching me behind circular glasses, holding a pose in front of a bowler hat.
I walked up. His grin stayed put.
What was he doing this for, this clown, this denizen of Valencia? The most reasonable explanation would be for the money (isn’t that the reason we do just about everything?) but a more romantic, giddy part of me imagined that he did it for the sick thrill. That starstruck ability to cause laughter, to shock and amaze. To give people a story, to brighten up, dazzle them, even for just a little moment.
Give them a story. Like the man who dresses up as Superman, or the paper boy who makes horn noises, or the girl in the elaborate goth garb, he will give us a snippet of a tale to tell and re-tell, cocktail fodder to make us smile. Guess who I saw today? Lessen the irritated monotony of our day-to-day, even though that happy high won’t last that long. At least, for a moment, it was there.
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