First off, I would like to say that I don't care if Damian is OOC. I wrote this for me, and I posted it so that if anyone wanted to read a record of what happened during a Ringling Bros. circus could do so. After going to one of their shows on The Final Farewell Tour, I thought of a universe where Haly's was closing instead of Ringling. After the opening scene, everything is a factual recounting of my experience at Circus Xtreme. This takes place while Dick is Batman and Bruce is in the time stream thing.
For those who are waiting for chapter three of Pet Peeves, it should be the next thing I upload.
Thanks to WhenUniversesCollide for beta reading this one-shot.
Damian's P.O.V.
I am writing this journal as a record.
This is for when we look back a generation from now and have to tell our kids that there is no circus to go to. This is for when we have to tell them that we created a world where a circus can't exist. This is so that we can at least have a written record to show them.
I am sketching at my desk when Grayson opens my door. I will never admit to the worry I was experiencing when I saw that smile on his face.
He says: "As you know, the Haly's Circus is closing soon, so I bought us some tickets to go there..."
As he was saying this, he lost his smile. Instead, he had the most bittersweet expression on his face. He looks so pitiful that I would feel like a monster if I didn't comply. Looking back, I used to be a monster. But I am not one anymore. This man, who currently looks like a dejected puppy, convinced me that I could be better.
I nod in reply, and he runs to hug me. That is where I cross the line. He may have showed me how to not be a monster, but I still don't do hugs. As he comes in for the hug, I put up my arms in defense, but that doesn't stop him. He just wraps his arms around me, completely ignoring my cries of protest. I guess he is really excited, and it will be one of the last of the last opportunities to see the circus, so its not all that bad. He pulls away and with a light smile says. "Thank you so much for agreeing to come! You have no idea how much this means to me!"
I really don't.
Alfred was driving us to the the center. Did you not expect Alfred to come with us? This is Grayson we are talking about.
While we were on the car drive to the circus, I turned to Grayson and asked, "Am I going to have deal with your circus friends?"
He hummed before replying, "No, I was thinking that we could go a couple of times before the circus closes. I always wanted to know what it was like to go to the circus as an outsider so we are going to be there incognito."
Alfred parked the car in the nearby garage and stubbornly opened the doors despite Grayson's protests. He is a good butler. We obviously walked into the entrance. At this place, there is a downstairs. The downstairs area is called the 'Exhibition Area'. Here they were showing off the animals before the show itself.
It was quite interesting to see the tigers that close. As we were walking around the room, we also saw camels and horses. After spending some time looking at the animals, we went back upstairs.
Before we went into the arena, we passed the souvenir booth. We stopped there and Grayson got me a Final Farewell hat and T-shirt. I thanked him for it because it means so much to him.
For about an hour before the circus, there was a pre-show. During the pre-show, people can stand right next to the rings and take pictures with some of the performers. Grayson had me take a picture with the human cannonball. We were standing next to ring two for most of the time we were down there.
After watching some clown preform hat tricks, some of the BMX bikers came out. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed watching them. They were truly good at their job.
After them, there was a clown that did some balloon tricks. Then, we had to go to our seats.
They officially started the show with a song and dance. It was fascinating how so many people could be that coordinated. It was quite truly extraordinary.
The idea of the show was that we were going to different regions of the earth to see the best acts that there are, with Alex and Irene being the explorers looking for the different acts.
The first stop is Egypt. They were riding the camels that we saw downstairs. They weren't just riding the camels, either. They were performing tricks on their backs.
After we were done in Egypt, we went to Everest. This was the clown act where the clowns 'tried' to climb a mini Mount Everest.
After they did their part of the show, we went from Egypt to the sky with the tightrope walkers. This group was my favorite. They were performing things that even me, with all of my training, could not do. They were tightrope walking on top of each other. Can you even imagine the skill and talent that requires? Then they started doing things that are even more impressive. They start playing a glorious version of leapfrog- on a tightrope! I looked over to Grayson, and I saw that he had that bittersweet expression on his face that he had when presenting the tickets to me. Grayson knows what it is like to be up there, and now he is losing the last connection to his dead parents. As that act comes to an end, the ring master announced that we are going to the deep seas.
There were two acts in this section: the trapeze artists, and the contortionists that danced in balls suspended from the ceiling.
First was the trapeze artists. They weren't jumping off the trapezes the way that the Flying Grayson's act used to. Instead, they were incorporating the use of bungee cords to perform an eccentric form of coordinated dancing. The lights were off and they were wearing glowing in the dark costumes. Seeing the six of them was truly a site to behold.
After the trapeze artist, the people who danced in spheres performed their act. There was a lot of spinning involved. After their act, there was an intermission.
During the intermission, the clowns were playing around. They were trying to throw special boomerangs into a barrel.
Then different clowns are tossing plastic jars and trying to make them stay upright, like that thing with the water bottle that Grayson got hooked on.
The intermission was now over, and we were off to Mongolia for the strong men. I didn't expect to be impressed by the strong men, but I was. They were juggling weights between themselves that weighed hundreds of pounds. The strongest of the strong men could lift roughly 300 pounds with his teeth.
While this was all going on, there were female Mongolians that were dancing.
For the last part of their act, they made a human pyramid with the female performers and a 120 pound dumbbell on top. The trick was that the the strong men had a stool like things that they laid their heads.
How does this make it more impressive? They removed the supports for the rest of their body so that the only part if their body that was touching something beneath it was their heads.
After the strong men, next was the human cannonball. She flew across the entire arena.
Next was the tiger tamer. He had thirteen tigers in the cage with him. They listened as well as you can expect tigers to listen to someone, and they seemed comfortable with their trainer and visa versa. They extended a paw at him in a swiping motion a couple of times. But other than that, they were surprisingly tame.
The tamer was working with one of the tigers for twelve years. Who knows if now they can have the opportunity to work for a thirteenth year because we killed the circus. Yes, I will be so bold and say that we as a society killed the circus.
The ring leader then talked about how, according to legend, the person who holds the roar of the tiger will have good luck. So the tiger tamer gave Alex and Irene gave them a jar of the roar of the tiger, but a clown dropped it. The jar broke and this let out all of the roar. They never ended up getting it back. I wonder if this is supposed to be symbolic of how their luck ran out because the circus is closing.
They ended up in the city, so they went looking for the roar there. First they came across the street dancers. They had a mat because they liked to incorporate tumbling into their dancing. Then there was this guy on the spinning wheel thing with the counterweight. He did several tricks on it. The most impressive of his tricks was when he climbed out side and started jump roping on top of it.
After him was the trampoline dancers. It was better than it sounds. They had this double layered platform where they had trampolines on either side. The lower platform was about ten feet above the trampolines, and the higher platform was about twenty feet above the trampolines.
They were symmetrically coordinated and were performing tricks such as flips.
Immediately after them, the BMX people came out. They were doing all sorts of flips and tricks. There were many of them too.
After BMX, the grand finale was next. All of the acts came together for one last song and dance. As the ringmaster said farewell and the lights dimmed for one of the last times ever, I couldn't help but have the thought: I am sorry Richard Grayson, for we have failed you. The show can no longer go on.
I might have a poll up when you read this.