Oh No, I Left the US Because of Trump and Moved to the Part of Europe Where All Live Performances Are Cirque du Soleil Knockoffs

Like many others, I left the United States because I wanted to get away from Trumpʼs America. But now that my only entertainment opportunities involve two men riding neon glow-in-the-dark motorcycles inside an enormous orb, I must ask myself if I made the right decision.

It wasn’t easy to move. But I consider myself an open person and felt compelled to leave a place that was becoming increasingly intolerant and closed off. Little did I know that this openness would bring me to this regional theater, with this man, whose thighs are covered with henna tattoos, and who’s rocking a loincloth that’s not really a diaper but also not quite a thong.

My friends back home say that they’re jealous of me. I understand why—they’re still there, which means they see terrible news every day. But it also means they’re not seeing this woman in a gold bikini pick up bamboo sticks with her toes and construct a tower for the peacocks.

To be honest, I believed that coming here meant that I’d be moving towards a more cultured environment. And I guess a guy dressed in a blue velvet catsuit, hanging upside down and doing air splits in an industrial hamster wheel is a kind of culture, but it’s just not what I expected.

There are so many things I didn’t understand before coming here, like how strange it would feel to be this far away from home, or how challenging it would be to learn the language. I didn’t even realize this was an ice-skating rink until I saw that woman dressed like Cleopatra gliding by wearing a live snake.

I’m no refugee, but I do consider myself politically homeless. Once upon a time, we took things like democracy and freedom for granted, but that’s no longer possible. I feel as if I’m witnessing the end of a golden age. I’m also witnessing a man with a man bun use his teeth to lift a second man by his man bun, while they dangle from a chandelier, waving peacock feathers.

I have so many questions about my new home. Like, why don’t people like to see children in restaurants? Who has the right of way at traffic circles? Where did all those ferrets come from? And what are those inflatable horses doing with that hobo ballerina?

It’s hard not to feel alienated, being in such an unfamiliar place. I miss the little things, like going to my regular coffee dive and knowing where everything is in the supermarket. And also theater that doesn’t include someone flying across the stage in a spandex lizard costume. Even the flying machine is wearing a spandex lizard costume.

Was leaving a mistake? I guess I felt like everything I once loved was being destroyed. Sometimes it seemed like there was this uncontrollable fire that no one could put out. And now there is an actual fire, and this blindfolded bald man in leather chaps is throwing it across a pyramid of contortionists while psybient EDM plays at a worryingly high volume. Surely we must all ask: How did we get here?

Well, I’m here, so I’ll have to make the best of it. I can only hope that things will be better, that the European Union is more resilient than its former ally, and that it can withstand the dark challenges the world is facing without losing its moral compass. I also hope that this man stacking chairs on top of each other so he can climb them will not remove his satin-sequined pinstriped suit before he does his one-armed handstand…

Oh dear. He’s wearing a thong diaper.

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