At Peace Day Of All Places…
Written By: Noah Moore

   Terminal Circus was about to be unleashed on an unsuspecting audience of pacified parade attendees. We had just finished ruling out the name “Circus Hurt Us,” and adopting the more firm, Terminal Circus. Possibly confused by our colorful, mid-morning parade group of cartwheeling children costumed as Hawaiian wildlife, I was going to set the record straight about the implications of our morbid moniker.
    Donning the dance belt that accompanied my escalated commitment to cirque professionalism, I marveled at how few women complain about painful undergarments. My anus felt as constricted as if it had been cauterized by a hot poker. I tried to move naturally as I teetered forward with two straight legs and immaculate posture.
    I sized up our audience as they milled about during the acts leading up to our closing of the 2009 Peace Day festivities. It was a good-natured crowd spanning many decades, races, and geographic origins. Every man, woman, child, and scrap-eating pet was united in the common call of peace. I made a mental note to work this into my charismatic spiel.
    As our group was announced, I took an opportunity to examine my mid-section: skirt covering unitard bulge, bulge receiving minimal circulation, and rear numb to friction. With nothing left to the imagination, we ran as a pack until I grabbed the microphone.
    Turning on my witty charm I introduced the masses to our clever troupe title, drawing gasps as I hinted at the possibility of acts going awry. A master knows how to toe the line when inviting 200 people along on an intimate sobriety test. Pacing perfectly with pre-act prose, this monkey-vested maestro had the laughter and applause cresting through fire, acrobatics, contortion, juggling, and twirling.
    It was time for the big finale. I was sweating profusely and looking around with a crazed look in my eye – probably a result of chaffing any distinguishing marks from my crotch region.
    “Who likes getting beat with a lead pipe?!” I shouted at the wonderstruck onlookers. A single short whoop erupted from a tattooed matron, obviously with her mind in the gutter. Not feeling like my public understood the painful difficulty of the incumbent performance piece, I barked again.
    “Who likes getting beat with a lead pipe covered in sandpaper?!” How else could I convey that we acrobats were about to wrack our bodies on a steel cube covered in very abrasive grip tape.
    Then I heard the sound. Not since my brother had jeeringly called me “Diabetic Boy” on stage at a Type-1 diabetes camp, had I heard the sound. I thought nothing of it as I seldom do when it is not a sound I myself have created. But the fact remained: I had repeatedly asked a peace assembly if they liked acts of violent nature to be performed by yours-truly, and there were isolated ‘Boos’ bubbling up.
    Clearly they were not ‘booing’ me, but the fiercely vivid picture of our swinging and hanging on an abrasive steel-poled cube. Still, Annetta would like the record to show that I was ‘booed’ at a peace celebration in Terminal Circus’ first official show.