Jack be nimble, Jack be quick

She sits across from you. She’s in her mid-twenties. Maybe thirties even. You fold one leg over the other and cross your fingers on your lap. You look at her over the rim of your glasses.

“Ms. Anderson, can you tell me what brings you here today?” You ask. You notice how she fidgets. Oh. She’s so precious.

“I’m back on antidepressants, and I just feel really, really empty,” She tells you. You nod. Sympathetic.

Jack jumped over a candlestick

“Can you try and describe that further, maybe try and interpret it in your own way?” You offer. She nods. She fidgets again.

“I don’t really know to be honest. It’s like…”

“There’s no point?” You suggest with a sly smile. She nods quickly and your heart seems to quicken. She looks relieved almost.

“Yeah,” She breathes. You nod.

“Have you ever considered taking your own life?”

Jack jumped high, Jack jumped low

She shakes her head, looking down at her hands.

“I don’t know if I could do it,” She admits. You nod.

“I understand,” You say. “There are numerous incidents each year. Overdoses, slit wrists, hangings, even shootings.” You notice how her lip twitches. She nods. “Most in cases where the individual feels empty.” She looks up. Her eyes are glassed. She nods.

“Is something wrong, Ms. Anderson,” You ask.

“You didn’t refer to them as victims.”

Jack jumped over, and burned his toe

“Is that how you would refer to someone who got what they wanted?” You propose. You see the flicker in her eyes. This is what you want. You mask a smile. “Ms. Anderson?” You prompt. She nods.

“Yes,” She murmurs, her eyes meeting yours. They don’t appear sad anymore. They look hopeful. “Thank you.”

Jack be slick, Jack be prose

You’re notified the next morning. Ms. Anderson had hung herself. Found by her roommate only hours after.

You put on your mask, you nod, say you wish you could have done more for her.

But you add another tally to your list. Another dead, another to go.

Jack they’ll find you, six feet below.

A man is most often limited in the short span that may be his time. Either it be his clothing, his hair, his dress, or put rather quite simply; life. This man is most often a showman. He dances and flips and skips. The children laugh while outsiders scowl, but this man knows it’s to be expected. That’s what the others had told him with one small advantage, a payment throughout his troubles.

His chest burns slightly.

What a thing to desire; a prize or a wish. This man doesn’t lust for fame, just a fortune.

This fortune will solitude his hope, become solace to his heart. The simple reminder of what he could earn, and all the things he could lose.

This Showman looks around the room, eyes flickering as he acts. They’re painted with makeup to look like a clown, and on the inside, he feels just as foul. He watches as the children skip, a light expression to his curb-appeal. He thanks them, but only ever silently, with small gifts such as candies.

The burning becomes more intent.

The makeup on his face begins to reside as the day wears on and on; the children leave, the sun droops slightly; and the man lifts a gloved hand to wipe it. It comes away smudged with white and red, brightly contrasting his fortitude.

The burning reaches his lungs.

The Showman packs his things to leave, when a final child comes wandering.

The boy is small, with hair like his own, in a red shirt clutching his mothers hand. The Showman falters at seeing his face, and behind him, a rolling cart of oxygen.

But the boy is smiling, so the Showman masks his own, handing the boy a bright blue balloon before sending him off with a wink and a skip, and a tender smile from the boys mother.

She almost pays him—it’s what the Showman has been waiting all day for—but he can’t find it in him, not quite at this moment, to accept the boys mothers gratitude.

Because of one small reason; he knows this boy.

He was him, only a few years ago.

The burning doesn’t hurt as much, and he can imagine himself falling asleep.

And for all that talk, of finding a miracle, now he’s not so scared. Because he found this boy again, and he’s watching as he walks into the sun. His chest and lungs are no longer burning, and he no longer puts on a mask. The Showman no longer smiles for others, they’ve all seen through his act. So he doesn’t pretend the oxygen mask is something it isn’t, and that his IV’s aren’t a curse.

He pictures the boy—no, himself—once more, wondering all of what could have been. He’s worked and worked most days of his life, maintaining something that turned into nothing. So he closes his eyes, and to the sound of his flatline, lays himself to rest.