The Love he Lost

"She loves you, She left you, She volunteered herself as a contestant just to be back in lour life... Ringmaster, it is my pleasure to bring to the ring... Miss Penelope Hart!" The jester clapped their gloved hands and bowed low. And as they rose, they removed their mask.

David's heart skipped. The storm-grey eyes and wry smile that looked back at him were just as he remembered them. She reached up and pulled down the long forked hood, revealing a messy pixie-cut of black hair. As she shed more and more of the jester's garb, David saw Penny, exactly as she had been when he had watched her walk out of his life. She flashed him a wry half-smile as she stepped out of the bell-toed slippers, somehow revealing the thick soled boots she had always worn.

"Well David," Motley, now completely absent of a body to fill them, was nonetheless rising to their feet behind Penny. They shuffled over, their movements hollow and boneless, to retrieve their mask, "since you seem speechless, lets allow Penelope here to do her introduction. We'll need to be quick since some of her fellow contestants over ran." they raised their fingers to snap but Penny was already talking, her eyes unclouded.

"My name is Penny Hart. I'm 27 years old, I'm an author, and 3 years ago I made the worst mistake of my life. I am here voluntarily, because not a day has passed in the those 3 years that I haven't thought about the Ma... About David." She looked at him, her gaze steel. "There is nothing I won't do to make it right."

"Very Interesting," Motley voice was back to it's prior Showman's patter, "Well, dear Ringmaster... I'm sure you have a lot you want to say to your lost Love, but there's time for one last act to join our little circus. Shall we bring in your last contestant?"

David sighed. At this point, he just didn't have it in him to protest. "Sure, lets see who's the last girl to get pulled into this awful freak show."

"Awfully presumptuous, Ringmaster... Who ever said they would all be Women?"