Throwback Thursday: ‘Fallen Angel’ by Robert J Sawyer

Angela Renaldo never knew if it was an act of homage or of defiance — whether it was the ultimate show of faith in God, or whether it was tantamount to flipping the bird at the Almighty.

Carlo, the eldest of her five brothers, doubtless had an opinion. From his position, planted firmly on the ground, near the bleachers, hands resting on the gray rubber rims of the twin wheels that propelled him along, there could be no doubt. God had enough to keep Himself busy looking after regular folk; He had no time for those who deliberately tempted fate.

Angela, the youngest Renaldo child, loved Carlo; she didn’t love all her brothers, but her affection for Carlo was pure. He was the only one who had played catch with her, the only one who had listened to her, the only one who never seemed to mind her being around.

Now, of course, things were different. Now, Carlo didn’t play catch with anyone. He just sat in his chair, almost never looking up.


There was nothing to fear, Poppa always said. We’ll be so high up that we’ll catch God’s eye.

The high wire ran for ten metres, three stories above the crowd, below the peaked apex of the big top. Guys along the wire’s length anchored it to the ground, preventing it from swaying, minimizing its sagging. A ladder at one end gave access to the high wire; atop the ladder were three platforms, one above another.

Poppa left the lower platform first, a twenty-kilogram balancing pole in his arms, a shoulder brace supporting an aluminum crossbar that stuck out a metre and a half behind him. The crossbar ended in another shoulder brace, and Franco, the youngest son, donned that, following his father out onto the wire, a wire no thicker than Franco’s index finger, his own balancing pole held underhand in front of him.

And then Momma stepped from the middle platform, walking onto the crossbar that was supported by the shoulders of her husband and her son, her own balancing pole gripped in her hands. And on her shoulders rested another brace, with a second crossbar stretching behind her.

Poppa and Franco inched their way across, locked together, the length of their crossbar setting the distance between them. Neither man looked down at the ground, nor up at Momma, whose weight was distributed across their shoulders. Step, and step again. In unison. An incremental dance.

Once Franco was far enough from the lower platform, Dominic started across the high wire behind him, a third crossbar supported by his shoulders. Antonio donned the shoulder brace at the opposite end of that crossbar, and followed Dominic onto the wire.

Mario, on the middle platform, stepped off, making his way along the crossbar supported by Antonio and Dominic, just as his mother had done for the one supported by Poppa and Franco. When Mario was far enough out, he put the yoke from his mother’s crossbar on his shoulders.

Below, the crowd was spellbound — ten thousand mouths agape, staring at the spectacle of six people balancing on the high wire, four on the bottom supporting two more above. And then —

And then it was Angela’s turn.

Angela, the only daughter, the youngest, stepped gingerly off the highest of the three platforms and inched her way across the upper crossbar, supported between her Momma and Mario.

Angela had her own twenty-kilo balancing beam, and —

The audience is amazed.

— and a metal chair.

She’s holding a metal chair, its four legs joined by thin metal bars at the base in an open square, and she proceeds to balance this square perfectly on the crossbeam, and then —

The audience goes nuts. They’ve never seen anything like this. They can’t believe it’s possible; it defies all reason, all physics —

And then Angela climbs onto the chair, still holding her balance beam, and suddenly, incredibly, fantastically, the seven-person pyramid is complete: four members of her family on the bottom, two more in the next layer, and her, little Angela, balancing on a chair supported by a crossbar no thicker around than her tiny wrist, above them all, the whole incredible thing a feat of engineering at least as great as its namesakes at Giza.

The cheering of the crowd is thunderous, tumultuous.

It’s almost enough to drown out the pounding of Angela’s heart.