The board came from a rundown building on the outskirts of town and the nails were borrowed from the same ramshackle structure.  Above the upturned plank the acrobat sat, supported solely by the points of six nails dispersed across the board’s surface.  There the man sat in the evenings, outside the marketplace, his preferred performing location.  Inside the market itself would have been ideal, but other performers crowded its already packed streets in an attempt to curry attention from the shoppers.
The acrobat reasoned that he would be able to attract just as many people on their way in and out of the busiest square of town by sitting near the entrance.  He was correct, of course, but in the evenings even the marketplace was barren of people that filled it from dawn til dusk.
Sitting on his nails, the man was concentrating on spreading is weight, touching each point yet not settling his attention on any one nail for very long.  All the while he kept his eyes open in hopes of spotting a passerby, someone who looked like they might have a coin or two to spare.
Seeing a man sitting on a plank of nails is sometimes unusual enough to attract a strolling aristocrat or maybe a tourist, but people who visited the market every day would have gotten used to such a mediocre display of control and will.
Thus was the opinion of a young boy trotting down the street past the meditating acrobat.  As the boy passed, he glanced at the man and was intrigued enough to turn his head as he jogged to stare a while longer.  That was all the cue the man needed.
As the boy turned back around the man stood from his plank.  Not on his feet, mind, but on his hands.  Feet dangling above his head as his back arched for balance, the man walked toward the boy, leaving the board of upturned nails to the approaching night.  Even his strides with his arms were great enough that he could catch up with the small child.
Sensing someone approaching the child slowed to a stop and the acrobat did the same, staying out of view all the while.  First the child looked left, and the man shuffled his weight the right.  Then the child turned the opposite way, and the man leaped left, landing on his hands.  The child heard the sound and spun around, but what he saw was a flash as the man launched himself over the boy, coming to land behind him, this time on his feet.  The child again spun around, but this time so quickly he lost his balance and tumbled to the dusty street.
“Oh!  Are you okay?” the man asked, a wide grin spread across his smooth face.
“Ow!” the boy moaned, looking up to the man for help.
Bending gracefully at the waist, the man reached under the boy’s armpits and lifted him out of the dirt.  Patting off the boy’s loose clothing the man said, “There, there.  All better, right?”  Even in the low light of the street lamps the man’s eyes sparkled conveying the sincerity of his perpetual smile.
The boy was looking past the man however.  “Mommy!” he cried and ran around and behind the man.
The man turned from the waist up to see.  A woman was approaching with another child following behind.  The man turned fully around and prepared to be addressed.  With the woman coming closer, her appearance was revealed in turns by the staggered streetlights.  
The woman stopped ten feet from the bare-chested street performer and collected the boy who clung to her leg and the arm of the other child.  As the woman chided the boy, the words were lost to the man as he stared at the two children.  They were both boys, the same height, age, hair; they were identical twins.  For the first time that evening the man’s smile slipped.
Though struck, the man raised his eyes to meet those of the woman, who smiled and rolled her eyes, indicating the children with a nod her head.  She then turned and ushered her twins up the street and into the dark, beyond the light of the lamps.  
Long after they had gone, the man remained in that same spot.  Finally the man’s smile returned and he looked up at the sky.  One by one the true lights of night were beginning to emerge, filling the man’s field of view.  He knew that somewhere up there, his brother was watching him, matching his smile inch for inch.