KNOCK KNOCK
"Who's there?!"
"Me, sir!"
"Who's 'me'?"
"Glasgow!"
"Glasgow who?!"
I tried to contain my annoyance as I talked to Johnny, who was inside of his 'office'. Due to the circus constantly moving (even though they haven't moved since I got here), the rooms can't be made up of heavy components. But since Johnny is the ringmaster, he had the privilege of deciding how to make his own room. His choice? Garbage, literally, which means that what I just knocked on a few seconds ago was a pile of garbage that was piled up and covered by a tarpaulin.
"Johnny! Can I or can I not come in?"
"I don't know! Can you…?" he said in a mocking tone.
I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm myself down. Under normal circumstances, I would've just thrown Axie at the other person's throat and then walked away, but this was different. Even though I decided to be nice and get along with all of the circus' members, I actually didn't have to do so, after all, the only one who I had to get along with was the one who promised to 'give me everything I asked him for'.
"Johnny, please. Lyra told me you were looking for me, so I came as soon as I could!"
A sudden silence overlapped our conversation as soon as I was done talking. At first I thought that it was because Johnny was thinking of a creative way to answer me, but after a couple of minutes went by, I began to worry.
I took a step forward, opening the 'door' (two blankets hanging from the roof) and sticking my head inside. For some unexpected reason, there was no one there. Not even a sign that he could've been hiding somewhere. Then, as I was about to bring my head back outside, someone pushed me inside Johnny's office.
"Good afternoon, young lad!" the man shouted before walking into the office and sitting on his chair. I brought a hand to the side of my head, rubbing the part where the floor hit me.
"Why aren't cha saying anything? Cat got your tongue?" he laughed uncontrollably with tears in his eyes. "Okay, okay, sorry. You were the only one who I didn't tell this joke to yet."
A grunt escaped my mouth as I got up, looking at him with a noticeable frown on my face. While I was doing that, a tiny meow appeared beneath me, and the one who did it immediately started to nibble on my clothes. The ringmaster's smile disappeared and his eyes widened as the kitten messed with my clothes, causing him to get up and rush to where I was so he could hold him and scold him.
"Jack Joseph! Behave yourself or I ain't giving you any treats!"
"Meeeowww!"
"No complaints! Apologize to him in this instant!"
"Mmrrroooww…" the little cat growled with his ears down.
At the same time as the kitten moved his head downwards, Johnny leaned down and apologized to me on behalf of Jack. "Sorry about him. I think it would be better if I stopped joking and we jumped right into business, wouldn't it?" he said before holding my hand and helping me up.
With a swift motion on his legs, he kicked an improvised chair (a paint bucket made out of plastic) and then, hitting me with his hips, he made me sit on it. I watched in awe as after sitting me on that 'chair', he immediately did the most unnecessary (yet still, impressive) backflip and landed perfectly on his chair.
"So? What did you want to talk about" he asked with a gentle smile while petting Jack.
"Well… Lyra told me you wanted me to come here, so here I am."
"Right…" he then said slowly, "So, what do you want to talk about?"
I gave him a confused gaze, trying to understand why he repeated himself in that way.
"As I said, I just came here because you wanted to talk to me, didn't you?"
"I did! And that's why I'm asking you what you want to talk about."
"Huh? Wouldn't it be the other way around?"
Johnny let out a sigh and then laughed at my question. Before speaking again, he lifted Jack's body in the air and started to explain himself.
"Glasgow, have you ever been in love?"
"Uhmm… I did? But I don't really get wh-"
"So you must know what it feels like!" he claimed before moving his kitten to my face. The little one looked at me with his eyes and then placed his tiny paw on my mouth, as if telling me to shut up and listen.
"Listen, Glasgow. When you love someone, you'd do anything to talk to them, don't you?"
He waited for me to give him a signal so he could go on, and once I nodded, he kept going.
"What I'm trying to get at is that I love this circus, which means I love all of the members as much as I love the circus itself. That's why I ask 'what do you want to talk about?' "
Jack turned his head around to see Johnny, and after he winked at him, he retrieved his paw and began to escalate the man's arm. The little animal walked all the way from his hand to his shoulder, and from there, he placed himself in his head, where he decided to curl up and sleep peacefully.
With a low voice, yet a loud laugh, the ringmaster pointed at the animal in his head and said "See? I love this circus so much that I even allow the cats to sleep on my head."
I squinted my eyes in confusion, trying to get a hold of the situation. Neither his words, his actions or anything were making any sense to me, but after deliberating it for a few seconds, I remembered something: 97% of the time, Johnny makes no sense at all.
"So? What did you want to talk about?" the ringmaster interrupted my thoughts while emerging from behind me. I thought about the answer for a few seconds as I looked at his cat, sleeping peacefully on top of his hair. While watching him, a memory came to my mind rapidly: the moment when I decided to give the cat a name.
I don't want to get into details, but after 'that thing' happened with Lyra, she told me not to think so hard about it, and just give him a name that seemed nice and that'd fit him. At that moment, a lot of names came into mind, but only one resonated more times than the rest: Jack. The reason? There was a cat in this comic that I like that was named Jack, and for a reason that I do not know, the name seemed like a good fit for Johnny's kitten.
Why am I remembering this? Really simple: One of the conditions for me to stay here was to name the kitten, and since I did, it was time for Johnny to fulfill his part of the deal.
I stood up and turned around, facing Johnny as I petted on Jack's small body. Before getting to the point, I moved my hand from Jack's head to Johnny's shoulder and told him "The Fall. You said something about The Fall back when I got here. I'd like you to tell me all about it."
In a mocking act of surrender, Johnny raised his arms and rolled his eyes playfully. Then, he walked up to his chair and sat with his legs crossed, getting into a comfortable position before finally saying "You might want to get comfortable, this story is rather long…"