People drifted into the circus tent fluently and didn't stop, bringing the smell of candy apples, cotton candy, popcorn and other unidentified smells with them. Their cheery babble filled every corner of the round tent (which made their gossip even more audible, seeing as there were no corners). Hyperactive children ran around the passageways, tossing their cotton candy and whining to their parents when the show would start.

The truth was, there were only five minutes left until my older cousin, dressed as a clown, would start the show by a few laughs then run backstage and let the other continue, twisting and dancing and throwing themselves from the highest point of the tent to swoop above the heads of the crowd and extract collective 'oohs' and 'aahs' and enthusiastic clapping. Then,
backstage, my mother would come running towards me and whisper 'Danny, it's your turn!' I would step on a giant net high above the audience and hang upside down from a toupee. My sister and my cousin would fling themselves at me and I would catch them by their hands or their ankles as the crowd would cheer. Then the show would go on.

That's what I hated. Every weekend I would feel like a freak again and again and feel the audiences' mighty stare boring a hole into my body as I faked a smile and pretended to look pleased. All the while I felt like murder. I wanted more than anything to just walk away and never return, to just be normal and be in the crowd instead of in the show. I knew nobody else in my family felt the same way I did, which made me feel even more like a freak. They were all proud to be completing the family custom. I cursed a million times the ancestor who had started the tradition. I cursed him again as the lights turned off, the crowed became a quiet buzz, and my cousin stepped onstage.