“Who’s next, who’s next?” cried the entertainer from his sidewalk stage.

 

Children craned over pastel sugar clouds of cotton candy to see the diminutive mugs stacked like acrobats on his table. A rollercoaster rumbled into the crowd’s eardrums, and the bystanders strained harder to hear the straw-hatted, striped-bow-tied man.

 

“Anyone? No one? Come on, then, don’t be shy!”

 

His barking ceased when the crowd pulled apart like the pink taffy stretched into sweet ribbons at his side. He scanned the sunlit panorama before him, seeing only the chipped filigree of iron railing along the pier until a brown button of a cap floated his way and two copper pennies were timidly placed on his table. From beneath the tattered beanie’s brim, a round face with large chocolate puddles for eyes looked up and met the man’s gaze. The entertainer gave his first authentic grin of the day.

 

“Very well, son. It’s simple. All you need to do is keep your eye on the prize. Remember where it is.” With flourish, the man produced a small milky pearl, pinching it between thumb and forefinger as he held it aloft for all to see before lowering it to the boy’s eye-level. “Let’s concentrate, now.”

 

One by one, he unstacked his cups and turned them face down on the table surface. Only one of them consumed the pearl from view.

 

“Concentrate,” the man repeated.

 

Round and round, side to side, the little mugs glided across the table, their friction generating a swoosh that reminded the boy of pebbles displaced by the tides. He focused on the one cup until his sight blurred into its soft blue glazing and seemed to submerge into it. Waves crashed in his little elfin ears as he breaststroked through the aqua sea engulfing him and paddled through the greens of its depths. Gulls cawed overhead, and the boy splished and splashed as his mother’s laughter rang out on the breezes. She was here, with him again, and he was happy in the singularity of that one perfect day they had shared. This one. Fleeting. Moment.

 

The mugs whirred to a stop.

 

“Now, then, can you remember which one?”

 

Still staring at the cup, mesmerized, the boy silently nodded.

 

“Well, if you do,” the man said, “then my treasure is now yours. Let us see…”

 

The boy gulped as he slowly pointed to one, tasting salt on his lips and feeling the grit of sand on his skin. He watched as the cup lifted but didn’t mind what was beneath it until the audience’s cheering jarred him into the present. He felt his feet on dry land again and remembered that, in the middle of a crowd, he stood alone.

 

“Hurrah! Well done, boy! You’ve done it!” the entertainer managed to exalt through his clear disbelief and utter disappointment. “And now you win your treasure!”

 

The boy nodded excitedly, expectantly, as he held his little hand out, but he frowned at once as the pearl rolled in his palm.

 

“What’s this?” he finally spoke.

 

“Why, that’s your prize! Your treasure!”

 

“No, it isn’t,” the boy said.

 

“But of course it is! What else would you want? What else could there be of more value than this fine pearl?”

 

The man smirked and furrowed his brows in incredulity. The crowd tittered. The boy looked back at the objects on the table and belly-flopped into their blue.

 

“The cups, please,” the boy said. “I’d like to have the cups, if I may, sir.”