When my mother, the trapeze artist with the golden hair, tossed me out of her self to the applause of elephants and seals, there was rain outside and the caravans were about to leave. She nursed me through the passages of roads and the follies of clowns and the bitter songs of an old dwarf who prophesied for me a life of wandering among spiders and beasts. But the owner of the circus already had plans for me. We are missing a strongman and a lion tamer, he said, and took me out of my mother’s arms to feel the size of my thighs and the shape of my head. But I grew up to become a knower and a guesser in the world of tents, amid the shouts of the barker in the midway shows, who lifted his long hat and banged his cane on the outdoor stage and shouted: Step right in, ladies and gentlemen, and meet the Surmise Child! You’ll get your money back if this kid fails to guess your weight, if he doesn’t guess your age and the remaining number of your living years before you rest under a stone.
