P. T. gestures to the arena.
"The show's just started." he pushes him invitingly through the curtains and the roar of the crowd surrounds Phillip at once.
Instantly, as if the vastness of the hall and hundreds of people in it didn't exist, his eyes focus on only one thing.
High above, with legs attached to the trapeze, she soared through the room. As if the girl and the swing were one, or as if there wasn't any railing at all, she just flew, her arms stretched in front of her with utmost grace. Getting closer to him standing on the balcony, he takes off his hat, something he's been taught ever since he could remember. Always take your hat off in front of a lady, and that she certainly was. The swing takes her higher, all the way up to the level of the balcony.
It's a second, maybe two, but Phillip sees everything in her dark eyes. They're mesmerizing and magnetic and he forgets how to breathe. Her hair, her skin and sparkly costume create the sweetest harmony. He can't move, speak, do anything at all. She stretches out her arms, as if she was reaching to take him with her, and he craves it like nothing else ever before.
The air flutters and gravity pulls her down. Phillip starts to gain the feeling back in his legs, which, turned to glass or cotton wool or anything but human flesh, when he saw her.
She flows back down, and the audience erupts in applause.
There is nothing he's ever wanted more than the insuppressible wish for her to fly up to him one more time. A croaky whisper reflexively leaves his mouth.
"Who's that?"
While she disappears out of sight into the blend of people on stage, he realizes what a fool he's been. His whole life he was sure he knew what 'beautiful' meant. It was the view of the city from his terrace in his favorite apartment. It was the flowers he kept getting in between countless applauses. It was all the women he met on his parties, their red lips, luxurious scents, prominent bosoms clothed in only the finest gowns. He, Philip Carlyle, understands he's been deceived.
For there was nothing more real than her. Nothing more vivid, more absolute, even the faint memory of her face paralyzing his thoughts. If this is the other side, he thought, he felt ready as ever, and not equipped at all.