“No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms
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Written to Vedia’s prompt, because I was feeling like I needed to write random things today.
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It seemed to appear overnight.
It always did – and it always came for the same five days, no matter when in the week it fell. June 19-June 23.
This year that was a M-F, and Annie and all her friends bemoaned all the time they wouldn’t be able to go. Not until Friday, not until classes and chores and work were all done for the week.
Their parents didn’t go, either. They speculated amongst themselves who, exactly, went on weekdays, but the place always seemed full and there was always noises coming from the tent.
Friday came after an interminable wait. Annie and her friends hurried up to the gate and counted out their coins to the man waiting there. He was wearing white face paint and motley, a painted-on smile and a floppy hat. He looked silly, but Annie didn’t laugh. It was rude to laugh at people.
They sat down for the first show, more and more people in white paint and motley tumbling and rolling and shaking and being silly. Annie smiled while her friends giggled. it had been grander last year, she thought, but there’d been less clowns.
The acrobats came out, clumsy and white-painted too. There’d been more graceful ones before, like dancers. Maybe it was because they were there on a Friday? Maybe everyone was tired?
Her friends giggled and Annie frowned. The men in front of them guffawed and Annie fretted. One of the acrobats slipped and fell, fell down into the net, and Annie gasped. The man got up and everyone laughed.
Not everyone. Annie noticed pockets of quiet. She noticed the clowns cavorting more and more in front of those people. She noticed a certain panic to the capers and jokes.
She noticed the ringmaster laying his his hand on everyone’s shoulder as they left. No, almost everyone’s. And the way that the clowns, one by one, went limp like their strings had been cut, and the way her friends moved like they were suddenly new to their bodies.
It vanished overnight, the way it always did, leaving a town strange and uncomfortable, people acting like they no longer fit in the skins they had.
Next year, Annie thought, next year she just wouldn’t go. She touched a medallion, one her best friend had given her years and years ago. She woudln’t go…
But if she went, maybe this year the look in the eyes of one of the strangers she called friends would vanish. If she went, maybe this year she’d find her friend peering out at her from new eyes.
All she had to do was keep going. And remember to never, ever laugh.
