The Tent in the Storm
A Return to the World of the Grand Praxis
This is a special return to the extended narrative of the Grand Praxis Series. If you are new to the circus, you may wish to begin with The Grand Finale and The Revolution before reading on. This is, after all, a philosophy blog.
The invader’s hand never reached the flame.
That is what I remember now, standing at the torn entrance of the tent, the canvas split along its eastern seam, the morning light pouring through in long, unforgiving shafts. The moment hung suspended — the little girl with the candle, the outstretched hand, the question at the heart of The Revolution that was supposed to be rhetorical — and then the world outside answered it for us.
The flood didn’t recede. It rose.
⁂
Inside, the company has reassembled, though not as they were. The concentric circles have broken. The flames — those that remain — burn low in hands that have had no sleep. The sawdust underfoot is wet. The main pole stands, but only barely, its guy ropes singing in a wind that has found every weakness in the structure.
Jefferson is no longer writing.
I notice this first. He sits in the same place — third row, slightly left of center — but the notebook is closed on his knee, his pen returned to his waistcoat. His hands rest flat on the cover with the careful stillness of a man who has run out of words to draft and must now simply sit with what he knows.
When our eyes meet, he doesn’t speak. He holds up the notebook — not to show me, but to remind me. To remind me what is inside it. The words that were meant to be the foundation. The words that this morning have been used to justify a fire no one authorized, lit in a room the law forbids the executive to enter alone.
I move through the company toward the eastern wall, where the flood has crept closest, where the canvas strains most desperately against the ropes. It is here that I find Camus.
