Wish Fulfillment

This is the part of the show people like most. When the red velvet curtains close for the second to last time, just for a moment, then ripple and unfold back open. The shine of the stage lights on the fabric is only foreshadowing for the glimmer that’s about to explode onto the audience. That’s when adrenaline is at its peak. 

Agnes knows that. She can almost feel it. When she’s behind the curtain, waiting and lighting up the dark, she swears she can hear their pulses quicken, their breath shudder, their chairs creak from their bouncing legs. They wish for a show, and all she knows how to do is grant that wish.

“Have you ever seen something unexplainable in the sky?” the ringleader, Keiran, asks from backstage, their voice distorted and dreamy from a microphone effect. “An alien, an asteroid, a UFO?”

And Agnes, most importantly, knows she’s the act the audience really comes for. She’s the least fake act anyway. The contortionists told her once that their pay went up tenfold after the word spread about her. After all, everyone knows the puppeteers just string bits of cloth to look like the real thing, the acrobats and contortionists just train hard, and the magicians just pull doves from their puffed sleeves. But nobody except for Agnes can explain Agnes. 

“Ladies and gentlemen!” the voice behind the curtains exclaims, “Agnes the Asteroid!”

When the curtains draw open and the audience sees the little ball of white light illuminated from her chest, they gasp and cheer. Some of the members, the ones that follow the circus around as it slinks across the globe, already know the bulk of her act. The flowing golden dress, the cardstock stars placed in her hair, the metallic grey skin they assume is just body paint. But the ones here for the first time are really gasping. Agnes has learned to feed off that attention, use it to her advantage. Once she has them in her palm, she can do anything. That’s why her routine is never exactly the same.

That fractal of light inside her chest explodes across her whole body. Pulsing through her arms, it flies out of her fingers toward the audience. The papers love this one. They call it doves or shooting stars. Keiran wasn’t sure the first time she practiced it, but then, when they debuted it, the crowd erupted in gasps.

So every night, when the audience wishes for a show, Agnes grants it. Every night, when the ring leader wishes for a star, Agnes becomes it. It doesn’t matter if it feels real to her. It matters that it’s real to them. 

Out from the wings, the puppeteers, carrying marionettes of alien-like creatures, and the contortionists, all dressed to look like shooting stars with trails of orange-yellow ribbons tied to their arms, tumble around Agnes. 

Agnes makes a frightened expression, holds her hands around her as if she’s trapped in an invisible cage. Her palms percolate that same white shimmer. Then glow brighter and brighter the longer she presses against her imaginary confines. The crowd of contortionists and puppeteers and marionettes spin faster and faster around her. 

Suddenly, the lights in her hands explode again. They fly up in straight lines above her hands, forming a prism encasing her. 

The prism-box shatters. Each and every bit of light Agnes created falls like glass, then goes limp and spreads around her like a pool of water. The whirlwind of acrobats slows nearly to a halt. Hunching over, they crane toward Agnes’s pond. 

Agnes slumps to her knees. She arches her back and visibly inhales deep. As a violin song swells, she swings her arms above her head and collapses, melting to the ground starting from her fingertips and ending with her lower back. Bits of light crawl up her sides, blanket her body. 

One of the puppeteers breaks from the circle around Agnes. It stings to admit, but Agnes hates this part of the performance now. Every time she performs it, the memory of it snags on her chest and never fully leaves. 

The marionnet, a take on a blue whale swimming through the solar system instead of the Pacific, dips down and nudges against Agnes’s ribs. It slithers over her, breaking the blanket of light, which splinters off of Agnes back into the pool. Over the intercom comes the sound of a whale song. To Agnes, it just sounds like crying.

Keiran told her once that he made that whale puppet as a take on what a whale from space would look like. That’s the whole idea of this part of the performance. Another world. And sometimes Agnes thinks maybe whales are stuck here too, that’s why their songs sound like crying. 

Agnes grabs onto the marionette and slowly rises to her feet. She holds it as if it would decompose if she let it go for even a moment. It wriggles between her hands, its mechanical fins trying to break from her fingers. 

Like you’re trying to protect it, Keiran had said to her. This part of the performance you want to keep it from falling in a vacuum. You two are the only living things out here, so you have to protect each other. 

Then, Agnes didn’t have the guts to say that in a vacuum, things aren’t alive like that. There are no flying whales, at least none that exist in a way anyone that hadn’t seen them could understand. She’d wanted to say that there’s no getting lost in a vacuum, there’s just being moved. That sometimes, it’s better to be lost than to be trapped. But she kept her mouth shut. Part of her regrets that now. 

Still, in the show, she holds that fake whale like the imaginary vacuum of the stage will swallow it. She stands up, hands still cradling the whale. She walks toward the edge of the stage. Each step is exaggerated, a lunge between imaginary planets. 

She stands at the ledge, stares at the audience. She takes a long breath, turns her head to the whale. The puppet nods. Once again, droplets of light coalesce around her, creep up her body. She drops her hands to the side. Relaxes her knees. Tucks her head into her chest. She somersaults off a ramp into the pit of the stage, disappearing into the dark. Behind her, a trail of starlight glimmers. 

~~~

“The reviewers are saying last night’s was the best performance yet,” Keiran says from the head of the table, holding a glass of champagne into the air. 

The cast all hold their glasses up with him. They mutter congratulations, wonderful ideas, great performances. Agnes is silent. 

Keiran flicks his glass again. The ring silences the table. 

“They’re really starting to get the meteor thing,” he says. “Great job, Agnes. Great job everyone.”

Agnes nods her head, bites her tongue. 

“Here,” Keiran holds up a newspaper. “Keiran Anderson stuns again. The Paris show outdoes itself, where the performers brought scenes of space, magic, and wonder to life. Anderson’s directing allows for a story of a meteor lost in space trying to find a home to life.  How the lighting and more magical elements of the show work are ‘the secret gift that keeps on giving,’ Anderson says.” 

He nods to Agnes at that last part. Gives her a smirk. Agnes’s stomach tightens. That’s another awful thing about this body. It aches. Meteorites don’t hurt. They just observe. 

“Agnes, you really killed it this time,” one of the acrobats says. 

A puppeteer points to her still grey skin. “I think all your commitments are really paying off,” she laughs. 

Agnes forces a smile. It feels like lying. Before she learned to lie, she was so honest.  She prays, sometimes, to return to the time she didn’t have to lie. But back then, she prayed for a time before she was human.

When she landed, it must be three years ago now, she was alone. She crashed right beside a river, where she waited as a rock for a week. She listened. Then changed. The lapping river waves and wind peeled away the layers of iron, the stony touch of space. All they left was a girl.

She knew it was possible, though no meteors she’d ever known had fallen before. Some of them told her stories of meteors they knew, who crashed on land and turned human. She never understood why. Everyone always told her shooting stars granted wishes humans made. But she didn’t understand why any human would want to pluck someone out of the sky like that, trap them there. She didn’t know what wish could justify it. But she did know she was there then, and she had to do something.

The river was murky and wide, with a hill just on the other side. She wasn’t sure she could crack swimming quick enough. But rocks, ones that looked just a bit like the meteors she orbited with if she squinted, lined its edges. She dug her fingers into the dirt, feeling her body for the first time. She didn’t realize how heavy being stone was until she was flesh. 

Slowly, she lifted her body. The air didn’t carry her the way the vacuum did. There was no orbit. She bent one knee, then toppled a bit to the side, catching herself on a tree trunk. She kept trying to bend her knees, walk just so slightly forward, until she could do it without falling. Eventually, she made it between two trees, and decided she needed to go on.

Walking along the river, she wandered for hours. Barefoot on an overgrown trail, endless, endless, endless. She tried to imagine that the river and the trail were empty space, and all the trees and ferns were just like planets and stars. 

Human limbs were exhausting. So fragile. Crimson leaked from every bramble’s caress, every muscle ached. Her throat felt as if it could turn to dust like the clay under her heels. Finally, she found something that wasn’t only forest. 

She’d seen humans before, from space. She knew they lived in houses, where they turned on lights that seemed brighter than their sun from some parts of space. But this was her first time seeing a house so close. It was big and wooden, with a slanted roof that the forest had started to sink its teeth into. 

With wobbling legs, she climbed up the porch stairs and rasped her knuckles on the door. She could see inside, just a bit, through the circular window at the top of the door. A woman walked to the door. She stuck her face up by the window, looked at the meteor, and gasped. The wrinkles on her face deepened as her brows furrowed. She undid the lock and cracked the door. 

“Who are you?” she asked. 

The meteor opened her mouth, trying to find some sort of word. 

“I…” she started. She pointed at the sky. “From there.”

“From the sky?” 

The meteor took a fist, held it up, then smashed it into her palm. She made an explosion sound and wiggled her fingers. To both her and the woman’s shock, particles of light 

The woman’s jaw dropped. “How did you do that?” she exclaimed.

“From the sky,” the meteor replied.

“Well,” the woman said, still sounding a bit skeptical. “You might be tricking me, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re in no state to be walking alone out there.” She pulled the meteor inside, then closed the door. “It isn’t safe to wander like that. You’re filthy and you’re not wearing clothes. I’ll draw you a bath.”

The woman walked up a rickety staircase, motioned for the meteor to follow. 

“How do I?” the meteor asked. 

“You can’t walk up stairs?”

“I’m not used to…” the meteor gestured to her legs.

“One step at a time,” the woman replied. She started to laugh a bit. “I’m getting older, so I struggle a bit too. I just think of it as one at a time.”

The meteor followed her advice. She held tight onto the railing and slowly lifted one foot, then the other. Once she made it up the stairs, the woman started running water, telling the meteor to get in. Once she was clean, the old woman handed her a long sleeved dress from the cupboard. 

“It used to be my daughter’s,” the old woman said. “You look a bit like her.”

The meteor slid her arms into it and buttoned the front. It fell to her knees, fraying into waves at its base. The lace along the arms made her skin itch, but she liked the white. It reminded her of the flowers outside. A bit of the stars, too. 

“Up there,” the meteor said, “all the suns were this shade of white.”

“You really are from the sky, aren’t you?”

“You believe me?”

The woman shrugged. “I’m old. I’ve seen crazier things.”

In an instant, the meteor had her arms wrapped around the woman. “I always heard stories of meteors falling to Earth and nobody ever believed what they were.” 

There were tears in her eyes, burning for the very first time. It was strange, crying. The hot tears streaming down her face felt a bit like being a meteor, flying so fast that fire sparks over your skin. She wondered if that’s what tears were, just small meteors on the universe of a face.

“You’re alright,” the woman said, putting her hands on the meteor’s shoulders. She, the meteor realized, was crying a bit too. 

“I’m sorry,” the meteor muttered. “I don’t know why I did that.”

The old woman exhaled a laugh. “What should I call you?”

“I don’t know,” the asteroid said. “I’ve never had a name before. Probably some asteroid number but not a name.” “Well,” the woman said, “I can’t lie to you and say that humans are always good, but we do give each other names, and those are pretty lovely. I’m called Lila.”

“That’s pretty,” the meteor said.

“Do you have any names you like?” She shook her head. “I don’t know any.”

“Well, how do you like…”

“Agnes,” Keiran shouts. “We’re taking everyone’s pictures now. You’ve been zoned out forever.”

“Sorry,” Agnes says under her breath. 

“It’s your turn next,” he says. “But I’m not sure I like this dress…”

Agnes stands up and adjusts the white fabric, then tugs on the lace sleeves. “You don’t?”

“It’s just a little… juvenile.” He flicks at the peter pan collar. “Not as spacey as we want.”

“This isn’t the show,” she argues. “It’s just for press.”

“And what does the press advertise?” Keiran raises his eyebrow. Then drags his fingers along Agnes’s jaw. “You’re my star Agnes. Don’t fight with me.”

Agnes grits her teeth, tilts her head so Keiran’s hand falls back to his side. With a sigh, she turns around and resigns to walk back to her dressing room. 

“The golden one,” Keiran shouts after her. “From the performance.”

“Got it,” Agnes mutters.

In her dressing room, she locks the door and sinks into her couch. She pinches a wrinkle of the golden dress. It’s so shiny. So flashy. So built for a story she knows isn’t true. 

She slips out of her dress and looks at the tag on the inside. Angelica, it reads in cursive embroidering. She pictures Lila hand stitching it, accidentally pricking her finger sewing on the lacy sleeves. 

“Sometimes people just get sick,” Lila told Agnes while standing over her in the mirror. 

“Human bodies are cruel,” Agnes responded, grimacing. 

“Sure,” Lila said, “But they’re kind too.” The old woman put her hands on Agnes’s shoulders, then braided strands of her silvery hair together. “I used to braid Angelica’s hair, too. You remind me a bit of her. She had a thick head of curly hair just like you do.”

“Is that why our names are so close?” Agnes asked. 

Lila laughed. “Maybe by accident.” 

“What was Angelica like?”

“She was a sweet girl. Always coming home with chipmunks the cat got or birds with a broken wing. Always wanting to mend everything. Poor girl just couldn’t mend herself.”

Agnes sets the dress back on the hanger. She couldn’t cry before getting pictures taken. The asteroid in the story isn’t meant to cry. She’s meant to pick herself up. Even if that story isn’t real. 

She zips herself into her show dress. The fabric ripples around her waist and trails after her. When she was still around, Lila told her she had a real talent. A real beauty not a lot of girls had. When Lila died, Agnes used that. She waited at acting auditions, begging for the sky to take her back in secret. She stood on street corners all day, pretending to be a statue and asking for money in a hat, and slept in Lila’s empty house. 

After Lila died, Agnes found Keiran who told her she was intoxicating, that he’d spent his whole life in a circus and he’d never seen a girl like her. He pulled her aside on the curb, offered her a place in his circus. Told her he could make her a star. Agnes showed him the trick with the light, and he pulled her in instantly.

Three days later, he was holding that golden dress up against her chest.

“It’s meant to look like the fire after a shooting star,” the costume designer told her. 

“Doesn’t it, Agnes?” asked Keiran. He curled his hand around the small of her back. 

“A bit,” Agnes said. The mirror loomed over her. She stared at her visible collarbone, the triangle the dress cut into her chest. 

And the mirror looms over her again. Agnes touches the sleeve of her old dress and whispers a weak I’m sorry. She can’t help but wonder what Lila would think of her. Haunting city after city, acting like someone else forever. The hair Lila once braided is cut to her chin now, with cut outs of stars plastered in artificial curls. The light springing from Agnes’s fingers Lila used to see the river at night is now a prop. 

Agnes smooths her dress, tries to shake the thought away. This body isn’t hers. She’s always known that. But it’s never felt so far from her own. Even the first time Keiran rolled over beside her with the faintest light streaming from the window. It should’ve been nice. And it was, sort of, but Agnes couldn’t shake the dread when Kieran tucked her hair behind her ear and whispered “Do you believe me when I tell you there’s perks to a human body now?”

But she’s a muse. It’s what she’s for. Her body doesn’t have to be hers. At the end, it’s for an audience. To humans, far off stars are meant to be watched. Meteors are made for wishes. Lila wished to have a daughter again. Keiran wished for someone to make him famous. He even told her so once, at the end of a show. 

He lit his pipe and took a long drag, blew the smoke out into the night sky. Agnes pulled her coat tighter, tried not to shiver. 

“I always got lucky,” Keiran said, “That my parents were in this business. I saw the whole world when I was so little. But when they retired all the acts felt so plain. Nobody cared about a circus or a cabaret or any of that shit then. I could barely get one person in the shows. I lost half my actors, half my sets.” He looked over to Agnes, with green eyes glinting in the moonlight. Agnes found his eyes beautiful then. “But it’s funny. Right before you came I was kneeling at my window praying that something would bring the show back to life. Get me on the road again, you know?”

“It’s my job to grant wishes.” Agnes looked back up at the sky. She swore a star glinted in and out of view, falling down, down, down.

“You sure as hell granted mine,” Keiran laughed. He looked back at the sky. “Tell me another story. About the universe. Please?” 

Agnes told him about a planet billions of miles away where the ocean was purple and the sky was red. She told him about places where black holes swallowed the stars whole, and she and the other meteors had to scramble to get out of their jaws. She told him about how cold it was to be alone in space, that no matter how much the frost nips at her arms here, it’ll never be that freezing. 

“It really is a tragedy,” Keiran replied, “That nobody down here will ever see it. My job can take me all over the world but it can never take me past the atmosphere.”

Agnes had to bite her tongue to avoid saying that he was the reason she was stuck there. He was the reason she wouldn’t see the sky again. That if it had just been Lila wishing, she would’ve left right after she stood over the old woman, feeling the cold of her skin. If it was just Lila, she would never have stumbled upon Keiran, waiting with his directing wand and dropping his jaw at Agnes.

“Tragedy’s right,” Agnes said, as Keiran passed her his pipe. 

Agnes walks out the door to see him waiting. He’s smiling. He holds his hand out for her, walks her over to the camera man.

“Agnes, can you hold your hands up for me?” Keiran asks from the other side of the camera. 

She knows what he wants by now. She bends her elbows, holds one hand a bit higher than the other. Before Keiran can even say it, she sparks light from her fingertips. It’ll look even more impossible on camera. 

She poses more and more, picturing the post cards with a weeping asteroid, the posters of a star girl posing in luxury. Part of her relishes in it. Another part wants to burn every piece of paper with her face on it. 

Outside the window, the sky is black. The stars are barely even out. Agnes shudders. 

“I need to go,” she says out of the blue.

“What? Agnes–” Keiran starts. The camera man looks to him with a raised eyebrow.

“No, I really need to go.” 

“Agnes can you just finish–”

“You’ve got enough photos of me. I need to leave.” She slides past Keiran and the photographer. Keiran tries to follow her, but she pushes him off and runs out the door.

There’s a river right outside the building. It reminds her of the river she landed by, just a bit. She runs to it and falls to her knees on the rocks. Keiran would hate her for soiling that dress. But she doesn’t care. She just sinks her fingers into the dirt and turns her head up to the sky.

“I want my freedom back,” she shouts. “I’m sick of fulfilling everybody else’s wishes. I want my body back. I’m not a woman. I’m a meteor.”

She’s crying, but she doesn’t know when she started. Maybe back in the building, maybe the minute she collapsed to the ground, maybe as soon as she opened her mouth. It doesn’t matter. The sky still doesn’t respond. 

“I want to go home. I don’t want to be trapped anymore.”

Her hands heat up. Light percolates in front of her face. Against her will. 

“Take me home,” she sobs. “I have wishes too. And I wish to go home. Why can’t I grant my own wishes?”

The light grows stronger and stronger, swallowing up her hands, legs, chest, face. And the ground looks smaller. The rock feels softer, lighter. But she feels heavier. No arms. No legs anymore. Just the sky. Just the emptiness.

From the ground, it just looks like another shooting star.