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The Sad Clown

No one knows quite when they started appearing. Maybe it was after the summer carnival. Maybe it was before. All you know is it's August now, time for school to begin again, and you have to keep your head down to avoid eye contact. 

Your mother had told you not to talk to them. Don't look at them, don't touch them, don't talk to them. And for God's sake, never follow one of them. Everyone remembers what happened to Timothy Carter just down the road. Went into the woods one day following one and was never seen again.

So you arm yourself with your backpack and stare at the door with dread before pushing it open. There he was. One of many. Taylor nicknamed him The Sad Clown. They all had dumb nicknames like that because no one else knew what to call them. They'd become such a staple in the town, people used them as land markers.

Oh, yeah Gran's Bakery is just past that red light on Collins lane, ya know the road past The Clown In Red. You giggle a bit at your little stream of thought. The Clown In Red was a clown who, you guessed it, only wore the color red. With his white face and white hair and gloves, the red seemed garish. Like he spilled paint all over himself. You hope it's paint.

The Sad Clown turns his head to you and you swallow your laughter and look away. Laughing too loud seemed to draw their attention. Like they want to be the ones causing the sound. You shudder and pull your hood up and tight around your face, using the drawstrings to make a protective shield around your face. 

You peek out of the scrunched-up folds of your hood and keep your eyes ahead. Maybe if you hold your breath while walking past him, you'd be fine! However, as you begin walking down the sidewalk, turn the corner where he stands, and kept moving, you begin to hear his footfalls squeak behind you. The comically large shoes slapped against the ground and he squeaked his stupid little horn with every step.

You feel tears start to well in your eyes as people watch you from the corner of their eyes. He's right behind you, his heavy breathing and squeaking shoes flopping against the ground loudly. You stop walking, trembling as you clutch your backpack straps. His footsteps stop short just behind you. 

Don't look...

Don't look...

Hold your breath and keep still and be quiet and don't look.

You hear the sound of something being blown, inflated, and then obnoxious squeaking filled the air. People hurried past, avoiding looking at you. No one would help. There was no saving yourself.

You slowly turn around, catching sight of his flamboyant costume, somber and greyscale in color. The slate grey balloon was being twisted and twisted and twisted in his hands. He is making dead eye contact with a mournful expression. The balloon amalgamation in his hands grows and grows until it's almost your size. It looks eerily similar to you, a greyscale monster just like him. 

Resigning yourself to your fate, you let yourself indulge in finally observing and acknowledging, The Sad Clown. You can't help thinking how nifty the clown's little creature was as he holds it out to you.

You stare for a moment at it before accepting the gift. 

Author's Note:

Dearest Reader, 

Here I present to you "The Sad Clown". A piece dedicated to my love of the carnivalesque and the abnormal reality of the 2016 Clown Sightings. Such a queer experience to have lived through, yet almost forgotten by time. Hope you enjoyed this one. I know I enjoyed writing it.

Sleep Well,

The Narrator