Dressed as a clown, just stumbling around
A bottle in his hand
There are many scary people in the downtown streets at 2 am. The shop lights are on. No one is around, except for the young people in the dark alley, doing drugs with their skates lain on the wall.
They can’t be older than highschoolers.
Thank god I brought a swiss knife in my purse: you know, for emergency and self-defense, when you are a lady walking late at night in the downtown streets.
I’m walking fast. Typing this as I walk so I’m distracted because it’s too scary. My hotel is two blocks ahead. I’m freezing.
And there’s that man dressed as a clown with the wine bottle in his hand, he’s been walking behind me for a while, it is… so scary. Like classical horror movie scary. The guy dressed like a clown… he’s slightly overweight, but he’s young, and he looks fine. I don’t like overweight men, they remind me too much of my father, who has a big belly.
Wonder where he’s going. He is going the same way as me. Let’s hope we are not in the same hotel, oh god!
That clothing… maybe he was working at some children’s party? Maybe he felt like going for a night out after work, who knows, maybe with his co workers… maybe he had a cute coworker, a cute clown girl… and they went out together for drinks… and now he’s going home. Nothing unusual, nothing to be scared about.
I’m peeking behind me at him. He looks really drunk. He has difficulty walking in a straight line.
Oh, no! Our eyes just met for a moment, I was caught peeking! I feel so embarrassed, I better move faster-
He shouted: «Yeah, I’m a clown. I’m a clown, so what?!» Actually, that was kind of funny. His voice is so drunk. I chuckled, but kept walking without turning.
I’m peeking from time to time. His clothes are pink, white and yellow, his makeup is white and red. Or at least, what remains of his makeup.
Actually, I kinda like clowns. They’re cool. One more block.
So, I just got to my room and… alright, I gotta type out what happened. My heart is pounding.
Ok, calm down. So. I decided to turn around to take a better look at him.
Our eyes met again, and I smiled, I gave him a big smile, to show him I wasn’t scared. Like, you know, with animals, that you must not let them feel your fear, or they will take advantage? Yeah, my thought process was more or less the same.
He seemed annoyed. «What thaffuck do you want?» he drunkingly shouted again.
Again, I found it funny. I stopped walking, looked at him and laughed. There were maybe 10-15 meters separating us, and I laughed in his face. He was a clown after all, wasn’t he?
«Listen, you…» he stopped, seems to compose himself, and when he resumed talking he didn’t sound as drunk as before. He said something along the lines of: «you can’t blame me for living my life this way. I bet you don’t know my past. What do you know bout me? The only fact that you know about me is that I’m a clown. You know what? I’m proud. I’m proud of myself for this!»
At that point I thought, maybe he’s regained his composure but he’s still pretty much drunk, cause I couldn’t make any sense of what he had just said.
«So what did you do? » I asked, «What is your… past?»
«I’m poor» he replied, «My parents make minimum wag- »
I cut him short. « Yeah, yeah, heard a hundred times. One of my closest friends has parents who are in garbage collection. He doesn’t go around bragging about it at night in the city streets… well I guess I do.»
I really had heard the my parents are poor story many times, from people so close to me. That alone doesn’t make you a clown.
«I couldn’t afford…» started on the clown about how he couldn’t afford college and he’s working at children birthday parties to collect money for studying and fulfilling his dream, to become a mathematician and study fractals and their application to describe our world. My heart jumped straight into my throat and I gulped it down. The grin suddenly disappeared from my face.
Fractals… I’m not gonna lie, I was so scared I was seeing almost seeing fractals in front of my eyes. Maths is my field! I have a bachelor’s degree in Maths. Well, for what it’s worth. I have still a long way in front of me as a student. But this is so scary, I thought, what if he’s following me because he has this weird attraction to maths? I’m in the city cause I was at a conference this morning.
I decided to play it dumb. «Fractals, huh? What is it?»
He then proceeded to give me the most drunkingly confused and unnecessarly boasted explanation, it was so ridiculous that I calmed down and almost started laughing again. I just smiled and nodded, grinning. What. A. Clown!
I walked back, closer to him. He hesitated, made a couple steps back, then he stopped. I got closer. Now we could clearly see each other’s face. Some uneven facial hair poked from under some of his melted make up. His eyes were tired, his mouth had no expression. I don’t know what my face looked like, but I know for a fact I was staring right into his eyes, and I was grinning.
«Have you seen me, this morning?» I slowly asked, finally able to have a quiter tone.
«Huh?»
«This morning. At the conference at the *so and so* congress hall. I was» and I came closer «the speaker.» I wasn’t actually a proper speaker, I said a couple lines of introduction bout some stuff, but hey, it counts anyways!
His eyes went from blank to surprised. He dropped his wine bottle to the ground, which shattered; it was empty. He looked at me closer. He observed me for a couple seconds, his eyes going from the tip of my head to the tip of my shoes.
After that, he mumbled: «You…. Are so young. But you’re so young…» and kept mumbling about how I’m so young, even though we’re clearly roughly the same age.
At this point I was feeling a strange connection and a sense of satisfaction in his amazement.
Then he looked at my face and said «You are truly amazing.» and it was the most beautiful and sincere compliment I have ever received, I mean it. My parents have always excepted the best from me, I had to meet their standards. Whenever I was brillant, it had to be the norm, so I wouldn’t receive any compliments; if I was merely good, they would push me to be better.
But then I realized how funny it was: a clown, a frigging clown, was complimenting me for mathematics! Come on. My thankful expression quickly became a grin, then a chuckle, then a full blown laughter in his face. I couldn’t help me.
«Why are you so mean to me?» he asked. But didn’t move. He was interested, damn, I knew it! I was right, that clown was interested in my work and wanted to gain my attention! That was the reason why he was following me!
«Say it again» I demanded.
« You are truly amazing» he repeated.
So at this point, yeah I’m a little embarrassed admitting this, but I found him cute. That make up melted by the humidity of the night. The dye dripping out of his well-cut hair. The pink mini skirt. The big yellow buttons on his chest. I was physically attracted. He had an androgynous beauty.
«Welp» he said, breaking the awkward silence. Looked shyly at the shattered bottle, then back at me and, after letting out a sigh, he said:
«I’s been nice talking, I gotta go now.» He did half a smile, and headed in the direction we were walking earlier.
«Oh hey» I tried to stop him «We are going in the same direction. You can walk with me for a while.»
I had positioned myself in front of him, blocking him.
«Your accent sounded familiar» he said, with that half smile, like he was remembering hearing me talk elsewhere.
He completely ignored my proposal of walking together, walked around me and just started going his own way. I grabbed his arm, saying nothing.
He gave a nervous chuckle. I felt a rush of excitement as he leaned towards my face and said: «This is so flattering, from such a cute and smart girl.»
But then he turned away and tried to walk off, again; I had never left the grip on his arm.
He tried to shake me off. I held him tighter. «A clown like you? When will an occasion like this one ever happen again to you? »
«What?» he said, with an annoyed and puzzled face, «What the hell are you talking about? I’m not an actual clown, it’s just my job! I mean, I am because my job makes me a clown, but not in the sense you are saying» and going on with his meaningless rant.
«So why are you dressed like a clown outside of your job?»
He couldn’t make a coherent answer.
«You are dressed like this tonight for me.»
I was digging my feet into the ground in an effort to hold him. Was he drunk and weak, or was he being weak on purpose because he didn’t actually want to leave? I don’t understand men so well, so I guess we’ll never know.
It’s three am now, typing this a lot of time passed. I’m so tired. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed up so late in my entire life outside of a festivity, like the end of the year or the fifteenth of august.
So what happened next is I reached into my purse for the swiss knife I always carry with me.
It has a small blade, that I quickly pulled up with my nail. In a blink the tip of the small blade was pressing against the guy’s throat.
« You started this!» I yelled, «You said I was cute and smart, right? Now kiss me! Do it now!»
He was frozen in place, I could feel he was scared. He tried speaking: «If you’d asked nicely, I…»>
But I quickly pressed my lips on his before he could say whatever. His lips were sweaty and still.
I applied a tiny bit more pressure from the blade, and they moved. I could feel his alcohol breath: for some reason, I liked it a lot. I submerged myself it it. I touched his face, and the clown makeup got smeared under my finger. I pulled my body closer to him, and I could feel his shape, I found myself so attracted to it. I felt his neck, his chest: his chest was soft and chubby, but not enough to have fat boobs. I ran my hand down his side. His white and yellow clown suit top was slightly wet. Was he sweating? I groped his butt and grinded on him. Then I tried to put my hand on his crotch. He had a sudden reaction, and pushed me away with force. I wasn’t expecting that, of course, and instinctively and angrily pressed the knife into his throat while he was pushing me away; I could hear him screaming. I was pushed a couple meters back.
I heard a thud. Looked up. He had fallen on the ground. Was trying to get up, but blood was running out of his neck. In a couple seconds, he became a blood soaked clown. It was so creepy. I couldn’t stand that view, so I ran away. With my heart racing, I ran to my hotel, quickly took the key and hid in my room. So now here I am. It took a while to write this, I had to take long pauses; it’s morning right now. I’ll go get breakfast soon.
To that clown man: wherever you are, I’m so sorry for what I’ve done to you. I’m aware I blew any chanse with you. Stuff like this, is never forgiven. It sucks you had to go through this. I thought I’d speed things up, but all I ended up doing was violating you.
Update: so, after dinner I was chilling in my room and turned on the tv, casually watching local news while scrolling my phone. A one-liner piece of news caught my attention. Looks like they’ve found a body: the young clown of children birthdays, still dressed in his clown clothing. Looks like he had bled out.
Well, at least now I don’t have to wonder if he will ever forgive me. He can’t anymore, he’s dead. That’s not too bad; being dead in this occasion, I mean: he was a clown, he would never have become a mathematician anyways. He won’t have to suffer through the disappointment, and he won’t grow old with the remorse of not being what he wanted to be. What a clown, he would have been.
One last thought goes at my swiss knife. It’s there again, in my purse, after I had thoroughly cleaned it last night. Luckily it was the only thing that got blood on it, thank god he had pushed me away. The blade is gonna stay with me, and no one is gonna have a single clue. I’m chuckling. Don’t get me wrong, it was clearly an accident, I’m not a killer. But I’m chuckling.