The Circle of Life moves us all - Douglas Murray
The night was putting a layer of darkness on the circus, one Douglas hadn't seen before. The lights were mainly turned off or broken. He didn't know the reason; maybe it was just for some dramatic, horrible act, maybe it was just to save some money.
Taking deep breaths Douglas let the cold air invade his lung. He had been sitting on top of the apartment building for a couple of hours now. He had watched the world around him change; how the sun slowly set, how the people came from work to go home, how friends and family met to spend time with each other. There was surprisingly much happiness in the circus and then there was him, Douglas Murray.
He had spent half a year in here. He had met people and saw them leave again. He had laughed, he had cried, he had struggled, he had played, he had kissed, he had discussed, he had given compliments and he had tried to cheer people up. This was a huge part of his life and yet, while he stared down on it, he didn't feel right in this place.
This feeling had been deeply burried inside his chest for weeks, maybe even months. As much as he wanted it, as much as he begged for it, he wasn't happy anymore. Especially not with the latest changes. His heart couldn't bear this feeling anymore and he knew, in the moment the sun disappeared in the horizon and the darkness swallowed him, that his time here was over.
He didn't plan on telling anyone good bye. He wouldn't go to anyone, knock on their door and try to tell them that he would leave. Douglas wasn't the kind of person who would do that, and since his brother had already agreed to come with him, there was no one else as important anymore. If he went to anyone else personally, it wouldn't only make it hard for him to leave, but for the others to let him go.
There were letters written though. Since a few days they were written and placed on the desk in his room. Each one in an envelope with a name on it. One for Eva, one for Sarah and one for the ringmasters. There were more people he could think of; more people who deserved a good bye, but he didn't know what he should tell them. They all deserved a thank you. They all deserved to hear that he was so very glad that they had been a part of his life for this time. Vanessa, Shira, Beth, Sarah, Brooke, Ella, FreyaFarrah, Bianca, Penelope; there were so many that had helped him or had made him smile, and he couldn't be more grateful for it. Only the time was over now.
The older twin pushed himself up and jumped down from the small building. Slowly he was walking through the circus and looked from one place to the other. A soft smile was playing on his lips as he let the memories run through his mind.
The time he set a car on fire - so thoughtless that he was standing far too close - and Eva had to pull him away. It was the first time he had seen her after something that seemed like years. The time he had ran into a tent completely naked and met the so adorably blushing Penelope again. The time his day had been brightened up by Shira in her Chewbacca costume. The day he met Hiccup and the while later when he decided to take him home. The moment he started dancing with Brooke in the middle of a tent, only because they could. The many times he had helped Oz, his old Oz, when she was upset.
There was so much Douglas remembered as he walked through the tents. Not only his memories, but others as well. He remembered how the pretty girl, Vivian Xavier told him about her boyfriend. Timon, who was such an amazingly warm hearted person, that he would even jump off a platfform, trying to catch a trapez only to make her laugh, who asked to fake a proposal only to annoy her older brother, who dealed with exactly this brother who acted like the devil, only because he loved her so much. She had never been so happy before in her life and Douglas knew, after meeting her again a day before, that she still loved him with her entire heart and missed him every second. So did she miss her brothers, her so seemingly cold hearted big brother, the one she had looked up to her entire life, her beloved Scarlie, and her little one, her baby, she tried to keep care of as good as only possible, Kovu.
Then Zachariah Lupos. The strange, only leather wearing bad wolf, who enjoyed being alone so very much. Douglas knew that Zachariah had decided to leave as well, only had the lone wolf done it like he always had: Quietly and without telling anyone. They would find his apartment empty, without a note, without anything in it. Almost as if he had never been here. And the reason? Zachariah had never really told Douglas, but the twin could imagine. By the many times he had found Zach hiding in the forest, staring at different apartments and taking care of a special performance tent, Douglas knew very well what happened to his friend. Zachariah's heart was still divided. Bursted by the women who entered it and turned his entire life apart. Nani who made him feel in the first place and of course his Nala, who took in his complete heart, so that he still didn't know how to get it back.
Claudius Frollo, who was only there to annoy people and set everything aright; in the way he wanted it of course. Oscar Cybug, or Turbo or whatever, who tried his very best to get everyone on his side and was while doing so, so creepy and annoying, and yet in some way funny. Brian Peters, who was the nicest and most charming man Douglas had ever met and who so innocently started to fall in love with Candice. Horst Schröder, who was the most horrible coworker one could ever have, the yelling chef who would only by his yelling get a chicken to loose its feathers. Austin Graves, who had barely been in this place and yet wasn't forgotten due to his silent, mysterious and maybe even a little dangerous kind of character. Who else if not someone with a deep problem like Austin could be a friend of Hook? And at last Ralph Yeboah, the somewhat strange and yet everything knowing old man.
Douglas could see them all in the circus. Wherever he walked he could see one of them standing, yelling, crying, arguing, laughing, smiling, bitching, explaining... Then, when Douglas stood at the entrance of the circus and took his final step out of it, their spirits followed him and they seemed to die within the circus' walls, he seemed to die, because the one person that was keeping them all alive was disappearing.
