THE SKY OVER GROVER'S VALLEY

            It was on a bright, starry night that the traveling circus rolled into town. All four hundred and twenty-six residents of Grover’s Valley were abuzz with anticipation. “‘Bout the most excitin’ to-do o’ the year ‘round these here parts,” Mr. Henderson the barber would repeat ad nauseum. “How robust and colorful those boys and girls there are,” the good Reverend Tinsley’s wife would editorialize with a matronly nod.

            Everyone was atwitter over the arrival of the circus. From Mr. Kearney, ensconced in his great log Xanadu atop Beardsley Hill watching his shadow move across the town, to Old Man Owens, fishing through the trash cans of the townfolks’ homes and Matterly’s Pharmacy for the most meager scrap of edible detritus, everyone was excited.

            Everyone but Roy Treadmore.

            Roy remained fixated on the same clear, star-peppered sky he obsessed over every night. He found it remarkable that the people of Grover’s Valley so easily ignored an indomitable and omnipresent source of wonder and awe. They had only to tilt their heads and feast their eyes on something beyond their comprehension. The sky above answered all their questions and posed some even their most formidable minds had yet to conjure. Each gleaming gaseous globe was a sphinx and the space between held the answers. If man looked to the heavens and saw only blackness, Roy decided, he needed to merely learn the language.

            Roy had considered trying to teach the people of Grover’s Valley. He had come to the town years before and quickly grown to like the simple, forthright men, women, and children who called it home. Roy had just as quickly learned, however, that what his neighbors possessed in sincerity they lacked in introspection. These were a people, Roy had learned, who contented themselves without delving past skin-depth. Perhaps that was why they ignored the infinitely deep sky above them.

Perhaps that was the appeal of the circus. There were trapeze artists, lion tamers, tightrope walkers, clowns, midgets, bearded ladies, wolf boys, men who were fired from cannons, and women who ate indigestible objects. They were oddities who had indentured themselves as professional fools. Freaks who engaged in abnormal behavior because, for whatever reason, they lacked other, more dignified, options. Desperation had compelled them to use their unenviable talents to entertain strangers who would laugh and applaud and cheer, and return home.

Would the traveling circus retain its charm under the close scrutiny the good people of Grover’s Valley refused to bring to bear? Roy doubted it. If the good people of Grover’s Valley were suddenly taught the subtle, painful touch of empathy, the tragic menagerie that so thrilled and ensorcelled them would turn into a horrific house of mirrors. They would be forced to confront their distorted image. They would resent themselves. And they would resent Roy for teaching them.

Roy Treadmore cast his wistful eye to the bright, starry night above and yearned for the day when he would return home.