Friday, July 24, 2009

Flash Fiction Friday - The Clown Flashes Back

Goal: 600 words or less.

Actual count: 613 words - close enough.

NOTE: The following scene takes place in a small town around the turn of the 20th century. The big tent for the traveling circus caught fire during a show. The town has no hospitals anywhere near, so all of the injured are brought to the town pharmacy.

THE CLOWN FLASHES BACK

Ross wandered throughout the triage area with a full bucket, offering ladles of water to anyone conscious. Except to those who were moaning, or crying, or screaming - they terrified him. He felt an odd revulsion, like he might catch something from them. He knew this was a ridiculous thought, but he couldn't shake it. His wanderings took him to a clown with an ink dark face and huge white mouth painted on in the shape of a frown. A clown next to him was painted similarly, except with a red face and a smile. They reminded Ross of the iconic drama masks he saw in advertisements. The smiling clown was dead.

"Kid," rasped the still-living clown, "help me out here." He struggled to prop himself up on his elbows. Ross knelt beside him, proffering an overflowing ladle.

"Nah," the sad clown waved the water off. "Can you reach into my breast pocket, kid? My medicine..." he asked.

Ross gingerly snaked his hand into the clown's pocket, carefully avoiding any physical contact. He pulled out a silver flask, dragging along with it a photograph, which fell to the floor beside the clown. The photo was of a young woman, light-haired and in refined dress. She was beautiful - Ross could not help staring.

The clown took a swig from the flask and wiped his mouth with a sooty sleeve.

"You have no idea what it's like, kid," the clown whispered after a moment, beckoning Russ closer as he spoke. A glaze was forming over his old yellow eyes. Ross figured his medicine must be kicking in.

"There was my Gretchen..." The clown paused briefly as emotions flushed through his face. "...lying limp on the dock - I kept praying she would pass out and be spared the pain. Her leg stuck out at an obscene angle. I could see the bone; jagged and messy. The blood was everywhere, kid, growing in a pool, staining the new white dress I had bought her."

He paused for another sip from the flask.

"A crowd gathered, and I felt as though we were in some absurd play. I wanted to yell at them - tell them all to go away...no one would help. They just stood there - dumb!" he exclaimed loudly. More quietly, he continued, "I suppose there was nothing they could do."

Ross listened intently. Between the clown's story and the beautiful picture at his side, he was able to block out most of the moaning and screaming in the pharmacy.

"As she passed, I stroked her hair and face to comfort her, and I positioned myself to block her view of her horrible misfortune...and then...such a beautiful sound I heard. Two ships in the harbor were sounding their signal horns alternatively. C# and A, so haunting and stark. A third horn joined. I closed my eyes. It sounded like a chorus of angels in my head. I felt an overwhelming impulse to lose myself in that sound, to leave the horror of the moment and flee to the world of those horns, like sweet Sirens they called me."

Tears were tracing big, ugly lines through his grease paint face.

"I was holding her, and all I could think of was running away! I hear that music every day - it haunts me, it won't leave me..." The clown broke down into sobs. Ross sat there as trailed off, afraid to move, unsure of what to do, until his father called for him to come back behind the pharmacy counter.

Behind the counter, his father grabbed him roughly. "Keep away from that dirty drunk!" he scolded. "Lord knows what you might catch from him."


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Listening to: The Drones - The Minotaur
via FoxyTunes

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