Clowning Around [FICTION]

I fumble around in the dark, trying to locate my phone. My voluminous pants don’t have pockets. I find a pair of suspenders, snapping them curiously as my hands continue to seek some semblance of my normal attire. A beam of light shines down on me and I blink back tears.

“You okay?” A deep voice rumbles though the darkness.

Before I dare to answer, I let my eyes adjust enough to get a good look at the asker. A short man with an incredibly broad chest for his height looks down at my prostrate form with concerned eyes. He holds a flashlight in one hand and a bucket of water in the other.

“I don’t know.”

“Still clowning around?” He grins.

This reminds me of the difficulty I had finding pants pockets. I glance down to find myself garbed in oversized blue pants and a garish yellow shirt bedecked in pink stars. I reach toward my face, feeling a thick coating of grease paint. I pull my hand back to find it smeared with white and red. I hesitate before reaching up with my other hand to to snatch a wig from my head. I stare at the fuzzy, red head-covering in my hand and wonder how I came to be dressed as a clown in the middle of a circus ring.

“Wait a second, you aren’t Martha. Who are you?” The man asks, training his flashlight beam on the blond curls now tumbling past my shoulders.

“Who is Martha?” I ask, trying to place the name.

“The clown whose face and outfit you stole.” He advances on me with the bucket of water and flashlight.

“I am sure I didn’t steal anything. I seriously don’t remember how I ended up here.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but a loud hiccup coming from the pool at the base of the high dive draws our attention. To my relief, he sets down the bucket of water and holds the flashlight firmly in both hands as he turns it toward the sound. I slowly clamber to my feet and follow. He glances over his shoulder suspiciously, so I back off, keeping close enough to get a good look at everything caught in the beam of the flashlight. When it falls on the pool, I begin to remember the previous evening.

A dress I recognize as my own barely covers the robust form of a brunette, who struggles to rise to a seated position as the light shines on her. 

“I’m ready for my close up.” She burbles drunkenly as she finally rights herself.

“Martha. Are you okay?” The short man glares at me and steps forward to offer her a steady arm.

Martha takes it with a giggle and then notices me standing in the shadows. “Harry, I am so glad you met my new friend Diane. We had a ball last night.”

“Did you?” He turns to look at me, his gaze softening a little. “Diane, could you hold this flashlight, so I can help Martha out of the pool?”


She giggles as he bends down a little to lift her into his arms. He cradles her against his chest for a moment and then sets her gently onto her feet. She stands shakily, resting a hand on his head to hold herself steady. He doesn’t seem to mind as he rests his head affectionately against her hip briefly after she steadies herself.

“So which one of you ladies wants to tell me what happened here last night?” He asks as he takes in the further signs of mayhem littering the center ring, from tufts of white fluff to what appears to be a trail of candies leading toward the main entrance.

I look at Martha, but she just waves her hand at me. “Jokes, I have, but answers about last night are still fuzzy. You?”

“I am starting to remember a few things.” I admit.

“Then let’s find a place to sit for a few minutes, so you can fill me in on what brought about all the extra work for me this morning.” Harry leads us to the front row of the bleachers and helps Martha get comfortable. She leans heavily on him, grinning at me as I piece together memories as they slowly return.

“Apparently, we met last night in a karaoke bar. Apparently, my virgin margaritas weren’t virgin because things are a little hazy…”

Martha interrupts to inform us. “I was drinking virgin daiquiris.” She follows this up with a burp directly in Harry’s face.

His face contorts as he turns away. “I think both of you got more than you bargained for.”

“I can’t be drunk,” Martha slurs. “I have to walk the tightrope.” Her eyes light on me again. “And your clown suit looks just like mine.”

“This is your clown suit. Apparently, we swapped outfits sometime during the night.”

Her eyes open wide. “And then we sang ‘I Got You Babe’ and you were Sonny.”

“I have a vague recollection of that. And then they kicked us out of the bar because it was closing time.”

“And we rode home in the clown car?”

“I think it was an uber. Someone loved your version of Cher and offered us a ride.”

“Or they love how I fill out your dress.” She laughs until she snorts.

Harry frowns at this.

Martha remains oblivious. ‘We’re best friends for life now, aren’t we, Diane?”

“I hope so,” I respond, “because I have a feeling I am going to remember some things that I need you to swear not to ever speak of.”

“Yay, besties.” She throws herself into my arms and that’s when we realize the flower is still loaded…

~~I once aspired to be a clown. Does that surprise you? I might still have it in me…~~

Flu Shot Problems [FICTION]

My yearly physical wraps up with that awkward moment when the nurse comes back in and strongly suggests that a woman my age should take advantage of the opportunity to get a flu shot. The doctor never asks himself. He knows I find reasons to say “no” to getting a shot. He values his time too highly to let me waste it with my explanations, no matter how valid.

“So how about it?” She smiles sweetly and holds out a release for me to sign.

I offer a slow sigh, not reaching for the paper as I formulate the correct confluence of words to get me out of this sticky situation. “You will never believe this, the last time I got a flu shot, it turned me into a banshee.”

“Pardon me?” The clipboard slowly lowers as her eyes run along my face, assessing my sanity with every micro movement of her eyes.

“A banshee is a screaming woman who announces the imminent death of a member of the family. And the last time I got a flu shot, that is what I became to my family, a banshee, a harbinger of death. I guess it is my Irish blood. It doesn’t respond well to science. It prefers the mysticism of the old country, so instead of protecting me, it made me know terrible events were coming.”

She lifts the clipboard again, flipping past the release to peer at something in my medical history. Apparently, she doesn’t find what she is looking for because she goes back to listening to my story with incredulous eyes and defensive posture. In fact, she holds the clipboard up like a shield, fending off the inanity of my words. 

“For about a week, the only sound I could make was high-pitched wail. If I opened my mouth more than a straw required to offer liquid sustenance, the sound escaped. Three family members expired at family dinner that Sunday, just because I tried to take a few bites of pie that I didn’t run through a blender first.” I can see her getting annoyed with my story, so I decide to wrap it up for her before she poked me with a needle just to make the words stop.

“I don’t have a lot of family left and I would hate to change the course of their fates, bringing them to an early end just so I could avoid a few chills and pains.” I finish. “And that’s why I can’t get a flu shot today.”

She nods her head and tucks the clipboard under her arm. “A simple no would have been fine, dear.”

“Hmm.” I remark to myself as she closes the door behind her. “That’s a first.”

I hurry up and pull my coat on, grabbing my paperwork before making a quick retreat. After a story like that, I don’t completely trust that she didn’t rush off to find someone to haul me away to the nearest insane asylum.

~~I wrote this way before the vaccine controversy. Do not assume that I feel one way or another about the vaccine. Be an adult. Make your own decision. And please be respectful of everyone else’s right to do the same.~~

Dog Food [FICTION]

“Where is it? Where is it?” My anxiety rises with each repetition, but I repeat this mantra with increasing desperation as I look under and in everything.

At last, I sit down on the floor and accept the fact that I have misplaced my English essay. I thought I left it on the kitchen counter, but when I came downstairs this morning, it was nowhere to be found. As I am pondering the age old solution of childhood, summoning my mother to find it for me, Fido comes over to rest his head in my lap. As I gently pet his head, I realize something protrudes from each side of his mouth.

“What do you have there, buddy?” I ask, reaching for it.

My hand closes on a wad of wet paper. Fido opens his mouth to release his prize. I gasp as I recognize the sodden mass as my English paper, hand-written as per the teacher’s unconventional request, and now unreadable compliments of the drool monster begging for more affection in my lap.

“Sorry, buddy, I have to go find my last rough draft of this masterpiece,” I offer him one more pat on the head before racing up the stairs. 

A quick dig through my trashcan reveals nine of the ten pages of my previous draft. I sigh and return downstairs with both unacceptable submissions. I grab a large plastic bag to put my finished draft in, complete with Fido’s attempt to edit. 

I seek out my English teacher before school. She sits with her stocking feet up on her desk and a thick novel in hand. I shudder as I realize she is reading “Don Quixote”, which she informed us was her favorite book on the first day of school. She assured us that anyone who had read it would guess this fact from the donkeys and windmills strewn about her room like disturbing Easter eggs. I hesitate on the threshold.

“I know you are there, Miss Finer. Do you need something?” She slowly lowers the book, peering at me over the top of the book as she pushes her glasses up on her nose.

“I need to talk to you about my essay…”

“You had two weeks to finish it.” She closes the book and sets it down on her desk, so I can clearly see her frown.

“Well, Mrs. Abernathy, my dog got ahold of…”

“You are going to tell me your dog ate your homework?” She sneers. “Surely, you can do better than that.”

Irritated by her disbelief in my story, I pull the plastic bag with the sodden mess that I am sure was a coherent A+ paper out of my bag and hold it out to her. “Well, if you want me to lie to you, I can. So here is my alternate ending, I was so excited about this paper that I couldn’t stop reading it and rereading it. I was reading it in the bathroom and it slipped into the toilet.” I held out the bag to her.

She shied away from it in disgust.

“I brought my rough draft, but I lost a page somehow,”

She peers at me suspiciously. “That explanation was even worse than the first one. Good thing I am not grading that.” She holds out her hand.

I hand her the loose pages and the plastic bag. She peeks at the former quickly before opening the other for a closer inspection of the contents. She closes it quickly.

“Your dog needs a milk bone. I will look at what you have here and try to be kind…” She shakes her head at the bag of drool, paper, and ink. “…considering.”

~~~Hope you are all enjoying back to school time, whatever that looks like for you. I know my children will eventually regret that we do not own a dog for exactly this reason. Maybe they can say their uncle ate their homework? He might. You never know...~~~

Future Problems Now [FICTION]

I take a deep breath, savoring every nuance of aroma that speaks of fall and the county fair. My mouth waters as the scents of candied apples, cotton candy, and deep-fried dreams mingle in the crisp air. I turn my head from side to side, trying to see everything at once. As Artie pulls me toward one of the tents, I focus on our direction. I let out as derisive snort as I read the name attached to the tent: “Oracles Den.”

“Really? You want to know our future?” I laugh.

“Don’t you?” He looks slightly offended that I am not falling all over myself with joy to have a charlatan take a wild guess at what my future holds.

Artie lifts the flap for me and I step into a sweetly perfumed circle filled with vibrant colors, sparkling sequins, and a haze induced by incense. A tiny woman with silvery grey hair and dark, penetrating eyes smiles up at us from a cushion.

“You wish to know your future. You wish to know your dreams. You wish to know they shall become one.” She waves a tiny hand toward two round cushions in a dark orange fabric that sit just inside the door. “Please sit. I will tell what you need to know.”

I struggle to hold my face neutral to avoid offending the believers in the tent with me. She glances at Artie as we sit before focusing those eyes on me.

“You don’t believe I can see your future, child?” The grin widens as she places her hands in the middle of the table and slowly raises them, revealing a crystal ball. “Let us see what your future holds.”

She closes her eyes and breathes deeply of the murky air. She waves her hands over the magic ball. Words pour from her mouth, an almost imperceptible song in a language I do not know. Soon the crystal ball goes from clear to murky. Then images appear. I lean forward to peer at them as they come into crisp focus. A young woman in her early twenties smiles back at me from within the arms of a broad-shouldered man 

“That looks like you,” Artie smiles, “I bet those are my shoulders.”

The image scrolls, revealing the face of the man wrapping me in his arms. He has the same blue eyes as Artie, but rich dark curls spill down his cheeks and the right one dimples as he smiles back at me.

“I’ve never seen that man before.” I say, unable to take my eyes off of the unfamiliar face.

I look at Artie to gage his reaction, surprised to see how pale he is as he mutters. “That looks like my cousin Chip?”

“Seriously, aren’t we supposed to meet him here?”

“Not anymore,” Artie mumbles.


“What?” I jump up from the cushion. “Because of some digital image she conjured up somehow.”

The woman laughs and I turn to see that the crystal has returned to a clear ball again. The woman grins at me, pointing at me with one of her surprisingly long fingers with an even longer nail stretching out toward me.

“I did conjure up an image, but it is not digital, it is yet to come.” She turns her freakish finger and dark eyes to Artie. “And you can not stop the future from happening. Trying to do so will bring it to pass sooner and with a lot more heartache for you.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I reach for Artie’s hand.

He doesn’t take it. Instead, he grudgingly puts a few tens in the open palm of the fortune teller. I shake my head and step outside right into the arms of the younger version of the man from the crystal ball. He laughs as he places a hand on each shoulder to keep me from falling to the ground. And that is how Artie finds us, me gazing into Chip’s face mystified while he smiles down at me in a pleasantly surprised kind of way.

~~Ah. The romance of pumpkin spice season. I know many of my friends are so excited to drink and eat their way through hundreds of servings of pumpkin spice before peppermint season starts. Since I made a delightful amount of apple butter yesterday, I have to wonder where apple season is in all this.~~