I have since asked the old fortune teller what it all meant. How the young man could be the showrunner from the past and of present. Why the watch picked that specific moment to repeatedly return the ringmaster to, and could not be used to simply manipulate time, bending all of history to its holder’s whim. How the watch broke, and all of the versions of the ringmaster were merged once more into a single entity, the man I know today, broken and working to find a new direction in life.

     She explained it to us both once we had been given time to heal... to take in all that had occurred over the past couple days. The watch’s function was not, as it seemed, purely a time manipulation device. You could not visit whatever time you wished, nor view whatever memories and futures you desired. It was made to target a specific moment in a person’s life: the moment when all is decided, and a person’s fate is sealed… and to give them the opportunity to break that seal. In truth, the watch gave the user the ability to change their fate.

     With the ringmaster, his pivotal moment was that particular time in his past, a child with his master towering above him, readying a punishment. It was then that the last shred of his humanity was destroyed, his master beating and berating the last of his hope and compassion from him. If the fortune teller had never given him the watch, he would have lived on from that moment with ice in his heart and grown to become the very type of person he despised.

     He would have replaced the old showrunner as a heartless, cruel slavedriver, reaping the profits of his own circus show without care for the treatment of his troupe. The watch took him back to that time with the promise of being able to change this future, but the ringmaster constantly failed this opportunity, choosing the same fate over and over by continuously taking on the role of the tyrannical ringmaster. He chose power over compassion. Familiarity over change.

     It was the watch that manipulated reality, causing the old showrunner’s face to perfectly match the ringmaster’s own. It was the hope that he would see the monster he would become that would prevent him from treating his future laborers as his master had treated him. Once he had realized this, he could very well alter his reality, becoming a new man, one finally free from his grim fate.

     But by refusing to properly mend his future, the watch continued to bring the ringmaster back to that same moment, breathing life into each mistake and letting each alternative self live out until the cycle was broken. When the ringmaster finally met this revelation, that he was becoming his own monster, his fate was changed, and all his previous attempts at life were merged into one, until he was left a lone man with the experience of many. No longer was he inflicted with pain by his cruel master, nor did he inflict pain on himself, so he was at last free from his troubled past.

     The fortune teller had known the nature of the watch’s ability to show and change a person’s fate and had understood the pain that awaited her dear adopted son in using it with this intended purpose. However, she had not been aware of the ability to manipulate the device: to avoid one’s true fate by abusing its power and creating clones of oneself and one’s realities. Thus, while it alarmed her at first, seeing how her child had mistaken the opportunity she had given him, she let him live out his fantasy and use the watch in this unforeseeable fashion. After all, it brought him the happiness and success he so helplessly craved. It was only when she realized this abuse of the watch was sealing his fate rather than changing it, that he was still becoming the monster ringmaster she had feared, that she realized something must be done.

     It was then, by chance, that she discovered me on that street corner, that night in the fog. She believed by bringing someone else into the circus’s mess she could somehow make a change. Involving the police would only bring trouble down on her poor child, the ringmaster, and he would surely be sent to prison for crimes to himself which the authorities and the public would never understand. No, she thought I could knock some sense into the man. Either the ringmaster would be spooked into submission at having been caught in the act or I could help rally the troupe members against him by having them be heard by someone on the outside. While these were her original thoughts, it was only when she met me for the second time that she saw in her crystal ball what was to be my true fate, and thus also the end to the ringmaster, once and for all.

     She knew I would meddle with the ringmaster’s plot back in the past, and thus did not restrain either of us. After sending me off, and then the ringmaster, she let our paths intertwine, and thus I revealed to him the face of his fate of which he had avoided all these years, and I was brought into clarity and then sympathy by his side. Through finally receiving the full breadth of the story, and having played my role to its completion, I have been inspired to share this story with whoever shall hear it.

     Perhaps through having the public finally bear witness to the confession of the One-Man Circus may the ringmaster find some form of absolution for the crimes he has committed. I will find peace in knowing I do not have to take such a fantastical tale to my grave. And the old woman can rest in knowing this story and the man she fondly raised have a happy ending after all.

     I cannot begin to understand the logic behind this mystical affair, though I believe there is a lesson buried behind the absurdity. Whether or not you believe my tale of time, fate, and travesty, I ask that the takeaway is this: you are what you make of your challenges in life, and if you are less than careful, you may very well become the thing you most fear. Eventually you will learn to overcome these adversities in life and in character.

     Thus, the ringmaster learned to love and seek change, making sure his laborers would never deal with the same treatment he had. As for me, I learned to become less of a cynic and that it is not always bad to involve yourself in the matters of others. You might just be the voice of reason, or the helping hand they need to help lift them out of darkness, whether it is a stranger on the street, a friend in danger, or even the perpetrator themself. No one’s fate is sealed, and no one knows where life might take them. You can only try your best to do what’s right, and to learn from your mistakes. If I’ve learned one thing from the One-Man Circus, it’s to live with compassion, especially for oneself. It’s never too late to turn a life around, that is, until the show has ended.