Let Me Eat Cake

I, Pierre the street performer, balanced on a tight wire above the city.

So many people down there, I thought. Walking, buying, selling, thieving, lying. What collective persona will this audience create?

I wanted this view. This perspective. This insight from 150 feet above the squalor. I’d understand them better this way.

I’d spent the better part of a week thinking up the means of this artistic feat and another week executing it: a tight wire strung between the two spires of the church of Elitch. And today was the day of my next great performance.

The crowd, or those who bothered to look up anyway, gasped as I leaped in a graceful pirouette and landed the stunt perfectly balanced on the tight wire. My weight bobbed and my legs vibrated with the thrum of the wire like a plucked lute string.

Ah, I thought as I performed a flawless cartwheel across the center of the wire. What note am I? Middle C? The focal point? Balanced, yes. Neutral. Essential.

As this fascinating musing graced my thoughts, it was at this time I mildly noticed with an ounce of annoyance the two men across from me dressed in silly city guard costumes and shouting something toward me from the spire window.

Can’t they see I’m busy, I thought. The nerve of some people!

So I made an about face, turning my back on these uncultured interrupters so I could better give my thoughts the time and space they required to breathe.

But no, I thought, taking a few steps along the tightwire and pulling a jump rope from my trusty bag of tricks on my back. Middle C is far too commonplace. Cliché and droll. That is not me at all--no!

I skipped and hopped along the wire, jump-roping at 150 feet above the city square of Elitch. The crowd slowly grew, far below like sand collecting at the bottom of an hourglass.

As I neared the far end of the wire, an “officer” of the city guard shouted something and tried to grab at me!

Little did he know that by doing so he’d joined the performance.

On the last pass of my jump rope, I looped it around the back of his head, spun in a circle with my back arched and my arms outstretched to twist it around his neck and took a step toward the center of the tight wire. The guard’s shouts changed in tone from angry and authoritative to that of a squealing girl who has just spotted a nest of rats in the drawer of their undergarments. A different type of music, to be sure.

“F-sharp, is that you?” I asked aloud.

The guard windmilled his arms comically as he teetered on the tips of his toes at the ledge. I could even hear some laughter from the spectators.

This has become a slapstick show, I realized. Very well.

My performance evolved from throwing guards off their balance to twisting with an artistic flair just in time to dodge a crossbow bolt a guard fired at me from one spire that lodged itself neatly into the thigh of a guard at the opposite end.

One attempt to bring me from my wire after another was met with failure on their part and increasingly riotous laughter from the crowd below.

Why do they laugh? I mused.

Why do we laugh at the pain of fools? Such is comedy, of course. But why?

We laugh at the buffoon’s pain, the nincompoop’s misfortune, the incompetent city guard clinging to the ledge for his life. The fictional fool on stage can’t seem to succeed at even the simplest task without injury or mishap, and we laugh at the poor wretch!

I hopped off the wire, gripped it with my hands, and spun around the wire once, twice, and three times to great applause.

Is this not sadistic of the audience below? Is it not purely evil of them to laugh at this guard who’s been shot in the leg with a crossbow bolt, or at the other who now dangles from the wire as his comrades try to lift him to safety?

A handstand, then a one-armed handstand. I am applauded and praised. I completed more flawless feats of acrobatics to my heart’s content. The drama of my show had been building for some time, and must come to a crescendo soon. A climax was imminent; I could feel it.

And here it was! A guard procured a metal file and the lot of them now ground their teeth in bloodthirsty grins. Murderous and scowling, they worked on cutting my wire.

Magnifiscent! I thought. The final act of my performance is upon us.

I sat down, feet dangling over the heads of so many people now gathered to witness my show and expressing together a new emotion: fear. Fear for my safety. Fear for my life.

Perhaps they are not so sadistic, I thought. After all, they seem to care that this story ends well for me! They seem to want me to live!

As I sat on the center of my wire, I swung my trusty bag of tricks around to my lap. From it I produced a small plate upon which sat an impossibly immaculate slice of chocolate cake. I reached my other hand deep into the bag and pulled out a small silver fork. I went about eating my last meal in exquisite pantomime, exaggerating my gestures and expressions of gastronomical pleasure for the audience far below to see.

Perhaps we laugh at the fool, because in the fool we see ourselves. The pressure to live a flawless life--always dancing at the precipice of Failure and Shame--Yes, that’s it. A release of shame!

When we see someone who is so much more a fool than ourselves we laugh with relief and comfort. For no longer are we the greatest fools we know. The fool of the comedy is the scapegoat for our shame.

I felt the coiled wire snapping and untwisting as the guard furiously cut away at the only grace keeping me from a long fall to my death. Murmurs of alarm and concern rippled through the audience at my seemingly aloof candor. I ate my cake, savored their confusion, and pondered some more.

The audience are the real fools, I decided. Not the poor wretch in the comedy upon whom they laden their shame and allow to suffer for their amusement and relief. The audience are fools for believing it is real! The Truth is that it’s all a meaningless illusion. Every last bit of it.

Upon finishing my last bite of cake, I sprung from the tight wire and into a dive just before the tight wire snapped and whipped the masonry on the opposite side with enough force to slice a man in half.

I plunged head-first toward the ground.

The audience gasped, then screamed!

I smiled. What wonderful fools, I thought. All of them.