I think it was midnight, at least it was almost midnight (I’m sure because that’s the most appropriate time for this sort of thing to happen) when I saw the clown. I should say The Clown and not the clown, for propriety, of course. So it was around midnight when I noticed The Clown standing in my closet at the end of my bed, and he stared at me with these beady red eyes, and he gnashed his teeth, those pointed teeth, and his hair, and his limbs – well, I won’t get caught up with details. The point is, there was a clown peering out from the closet at the end of my bed. And so, of course, I asked him what right he had to be lurking about in my room.

He responded simply by making a jibe at my sexual orientation and blowing a snot-laden raspberry. I tried to sleep but quickly found that I couldn’t with him standing over there in my closet. I asked him if he could, please, perhaps turn in another direction so he at least wasn’t staring at me. He retorted by implying that I make a habit of performing oral sex on strange men at truck stops. Frustrated, I decided that perhaps I should deal with the problem in the morning, so I pulled the blanket over my head and forced myself to sleep.

In the morning, I had hoped that the light of day might banish The Clown back to whatever dark corner he crawled out of, but I was chagrined to discover he was still there. He looked just a little self-satisfied at my disappointment. I told him quite frankly that he wasn’t welcome. He replied (also quite frankly) that it’s a “free country” and that I ought to acquaint myself with the indecent end of a horse. So I decided to get dressed (pushing past him to get my clothes) but just as I grabbed my favorite pastel button-down, he tore it out of my hand and swallowed it like a trick handkerchief, staring into my eyes the whole time. As soon as he was done, he went back to standing still and acted as though nothing had happened. I wore my green shirt instead.

So I thought I might go downstairs to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal (to calm my nerves). As soon as I sat down at the table I noticed him in my peripheral vision, peeking from just around the kitchen door. I hoped I could perhaps eat my cereal anyway, but as I brought my spoon down a large white napkin fell over my bowl. Suddenly, The Clown was next to me, and he pulled the napkin off with a showman’s flourish. In place of my cereal was now a fully-attired circus monkey, which immediately pounced on me with full malicious force and began beating me mercilessly. I decided to just have an apple for breakfast.

The rest of the day went pretty much the same. I tried to do laundry. The Clown contorted himself so that he could fill the entire washing machine, spinning around and shrieking like a banshee. I tried to watch television, The Clown interjected every line of dialogue with racial slurs and anti-Semitic rhetoric. I tried to weed the front lawn. The Clown somehow began to plant identical weeds in the exact spots I had just scoured. And so on and so forth. From then on, he was my shadow, though from whence he was cast I could not guess. Day after day, The Clown was there, and still is there. I suppose I’m used to it now, though.

Graphic by Patrick Higgins | The Oswegonian