The Flying Star
Copyright© 2025 by Heel
Chapter 4
The smell hit her first.
Sawdust, canvas, greasepaint — familiar and jarring all at once. Her chest tightened with a strange mix of nostalgia and fear. The circus tent loomed above her, massive, alive with memory: the ropes, the rigging, the spotlight still pointed at the center ring.
She paused at the entrance, her crutches planted firmly. Her legs were still useless, her feet just grazing the floor. The wheelchair that had once waited for her was nowhere in sight. Her arms, taut and strong, held her upright, ready.
She could feel the eyes before she saw them: performers, stagehands, old friends. They watched her with caution, admiration, pity — a tangle of emotions she refused to unravel for them.
She lifted herself forward. Click. Swing. Glide.
The rhythm she had honed in the hospital corridor carried her across the uneven ground of the tent. She felt every vibration of the floor, every subtle tilt of the earth beneath her crutches. Her knees bent loosely, her feet barely touching, yet she moved — precise, deliberate, and unafraid.
The ring was empty, the spotlight cold and unlit. But in her mind, it was alive: thousands of eyes, breaths held, hearts pounding in unison with her own. She stopped at the center. Her reflection caught in a polished pole at the edge of the ring — the same poise, the same calm that had once carried her high above the crowd.