Travelers Tale

Loneliness, it was something Sage had gotten used to long before the end of nations. From what she could remember of her parents they were always more amused... no consumed by her brother than herself. If she thought back to being four years old, she remembered when her parents packed both children up for a magical trip to Ralphie's Amusement Park. Coincidentally, there would be no family fun to be had. They had only arrived to the park five minutes before a thick smoke like fog and the sound of gunshots began to fill the air. They didn't know it then, but this was the day of the New Governments uprising. If she closed her eyes this day became all too real again.

In her booster seat she covered her ears at the sound of the "popcorns". Not that she called them that. She screamed, "No popcorns! No popcorns!" over and over. She couldn't see anything out the window, but the screams from those outside bombarded her ears.

"Shut up stupid!" Her older brother yelled as he reached back to swat her in the face.

The screaming outside grew closer. Her parents looked at each other for what seemed like forever.

"We're going to have to run!" Her father then looked back at her with the strangest look. Jumping out of the van her parents slid the back door open. Her mother leaned in and grabbed her brother gently placing him outside the car. Sage felt her tears start to cloud her eyes again.

"Mommy!" She manage to choke out.

Her mother came back and reached into the backseat. She grabbed he snack backpack with no second glance and disappeared with the rest of her family. There in her carseat Sage sat crying until her tears ran dry. The van door was still open. All she could do was listen to the screaming hoping her mother was coming back. She awoke from a nap to a dark shape in the distance. She began to shake. Sage knew even at that age her end was most likely near. It would be her screams that would soon fill the air. They were there to shoot her with their... curls?

"Do not be frightened little one. I've got you."

"I...I peepeed" is all Sage could manage to say. "

"I myself am close to that. We need not worry about that now little lady," She leaned in to wipe some freefalling tears from my face, "Let's get you out of here. My name is Cassi." She stopped and gave Sage a silly wave inciting a belly laugh.

"How do you feel about the circus?" She asked as she assured Sage her parents were probably missing her and there was always the possibility that they would see her on the way.

Then her awful memory fades into a million pieces of despair in the air where it should stay. The truth would later become apparent to Sage. Her mother had reached into the back seat to grab the snacks looked her in the eye and left her in the car seat for death either by the guns of the uprising or starvation and exposure. All of this was because Sage was not perfect. At the time she had just gotten her first prosthetic leg. She could barely walk on her own yet running was out of the question. They left her because she was a liability. They never found her parents that day or any other for that matter. Instead, she was welcomed and adored by Cassi, short for Cassiopea, Ralphie's very own tightrope walker in its circus village. The government men had torn through the park telling people they were to be taken to be counted and sorted. Those who resisted were shot. Most people swore that they were Americans, they had rights their skeletons in all shapes and sizes now littered the park.

The big top in circus village was one of the few places spared. At the first sign of gunshots everyone fled its cover. Everyone except for the tightrope walker who clung to the rope high in the air. From that day on it was funnel cakes for breakfast, corndogs for lunch, and vegetables for dinner from our ferris wheel garden because as Cassi said they weren't monsters. She said the food needed to be grown high to keep the bad things away from it. In reality, it was Ferdinand the Hippo, the only animal from the park to survive that they were trying to protect the garden from. Sage worried one day Cassi would fall off one of the many ropes she had secured to the buckets of the wheel. Cassi, however, would always just laugh it off,

"Child, we are living in a world where terrorists are searching for us everyday and you are worried about me doing a little gardening?" She always had the lightest laugh.

Sage's fondest memory, however, was that of the tightrope and many falls.

"I can't do it!" She cried only 6 at the time scared her newly improvised leg wouldn't work.

"What are you worried about love?" Cassi mountain of curls had an expression as curious as her tilted head.

"I'm gonna fall."

Cassi jumped down from the rope to look Sage in the face.

"Of course you will doll; That's what you do best. A person who never falls feels defeated when they fall. When a champion faller like yourself falls you get right back up with no confidence lost." She reached for Sage's hand.

It would be years until Sage was able to walk the tightrope. This memory and many others had long faded in the fires of time, much like her stay at the amusement park. Cassiopea, her whimsical guardian had perished not long after the fire that claimed the park. A simple cold is not so simple in a world disjointed. The night she died the blessing she was and all the magic the world had held for Sage began to drift away in the last flutter of her eyes.

She now spent her days hiding, scraping by perhaps you could call it. It had been fifteen years since the Uprising. In the beginning they often patrolled the places they had deemed wastelands, places that were too beat up for those in the new nation to live, for survivors to add to their nation or eliminate. Now however, it had been years since Sage had even heard let alone seen a patrol. The nation had major cities in three main countries and small settlements in two other places as far as she had heard. Why would they patrol anymore? They had slaughtered everyone. In the streets were bones long strewn by animals.

She would follow the littered road remembering Cassi's words,

"Life without people to share it with is like a circus tent with no circus to fill it. Yes, you must survive, but honor me by thriving. Find your people my faller. Don't hide." She had coughed out those words with such difficulty knowing soon she too would be another body littering the street.

Sage would not leave her to such a fate. She after all, was the closest thing to a mother she would ever had. When she passed Sage would bury her in a place Cassi had said she would like to visit because it was very close to being a circus; the courthouse. It was the only government building Sage could find it town. She placed a wooden bird and the bright purple lipstick she always wore where she had laid her to rest. Nothing, but the best for the closest thing to a human bird Sage had known. A bird of Paradise gone too soon.

It had been three years of what seemed like chasing a ghost. Being haunted by the memories of what had been. Sage laughed as she leaned on what used to be a park bench had it not long since rotted becoming one with its surroundings. When you end up alone you become resourceful. She currently was using an old mailbox as prosthetic leg. She dared not look out for fear of knowing what she would see. The park was littered with weather worn tiny shoes, clothing, strollers and all the things reminiscent of childhood. When they came that day they didn't care if your husband was at work if your nanny had your children at the park. It was here amongst the sadness of life ended too soon she sat to ponder, though not longer for a minute. The walk to where she was going was endless because she had no destination in mind. Despite the of it all she was eager to begin this journey. She would find her people. She was Sage after all the champion faller nothing could keep her down for long.