Hic et nunc lettering on a forearm

Lazaro's granddaughter, Ines, worked a trapeze with no net, because a net cost money the company no longer had. Every night she climbed to the rafters and every night the crowd thinned a little more. One wet October a man in a good grey coat came to the ticket table and asked whether the show could be bought. Ines told him a show could not be bought, only watched. He paid for four seats anyway and sat alone in the front row, writing on a folded sheet of paper.

On the last night he stood before the finale and asked for quiet. He said the bank had been patient for three seasons and was done being patient. Ines did not climb down. She swung out over the sawdust, let go, and for one long breath she was only a shape against the canvas, owning nothing and owing nothing. Then she caught the bar, and the whole tent breathed out with her. The man in the grey coat did not write a word.

The next morning Lazaro's sign came down and the wagons went north with no name painted on them. Ines still gets letters asking where the show went. I tell them the truth, which is that it is still going, and the only place to find it is wherever somebody is hanging by one hand, looking down at the sawdust and deciding not to let go yet. That was all the magic there ever was. Now, who wants to hear the goat's version?