Clowning Around

    I lay on my bunk gazing up to the hard stucco ceiling as the doors down the hallway open. I hear footsteps walk towards my

direction. Quickly rolling up right I jumped down from the top bunk of the steel beds. I creep up to the bars of my cell to attempt 

to catch a look down the hall in the direction of the approaching individuals. The familiar tap of the officers shoes are mocked by

the hard solid pound of a much larger shoe. As the steps grew closer in my direction, I slowly began to step back from the cell

bars wishing I could hid in a crack in the floor.
   
    “There’s no way I’m bunking up with Big Foot, this cell isn’t even big enough for me”.

    As the two come into view I see a giant of a man towering over the officer at around 7 feet tall. He wares big baggy purple

pants with white pin stripes running down the legs. He’s shirtless baring only a tattoo of a clown on his rip chiseled chest and

torso and a pair of red suspenders. He has long stringy hair draping over a strange mask. The mask looks like porcelain though

the surface is marred and chipped with cracks running in all directions. The mouth is wired and stapled with a small opening. The

lips of the mask are painted a light rose red color and the nose bright red. His eyes behind  the mask are dark like peering into a

black crystal ball, you can see something like a hurricane churning over a black ocean. The more you made eye contact the

more you feel like you have to make eye contact, it was impossible to just walk away, it was quickly becoming an addiction to

peer into his eyes, they made you feel peaceful and fearless. But you can also feel a bite from them as well. A cold clammy chill

runs down you entire body, and a tingle slithers up the spine entering the back of the brain. 
 
    The cell door slides open and the officer prods the large man in the back with his baton. The clown steps through the

threshold with his head bowed in shame. Once in the cell the door slides closed and the officer returns the baton and removes a

set of keys from his duty belt. The monster of a man raises is hands to the slit between the bars to have his shackles and waist

chains taken off. As the officer begins to unlock the last cuff the clown leans forward to the cops ear and whispers in a low rough

deep tone.
 
    “Officer, would you like to see a trick?’

    The cop launches himself back as the clown raises his huge hand out beyond the cell bars and motions as if pulling

something from the air. The cop acts fast removing his gun from its holster but stops dead having caught eye to eye contact with

the clown. The clown  completes his motion and from nowhere, air itself, pulls down an orchestra conductors wand. I stood white

knuckled to my bunk in total disbelief, I about shit myself.

    The clown then begins to hum aloud a sort of eerie sounding tone and waving the wand around to the tempo. The color in the

officers face flushes away as tears begin to stream from the mans eyes and yet remains silent not uttering a single sound. As

the eerie song changes pitch the cop slowly raises the pistol to his own mouth and holds it there. The clown sounds as though

coming to an end of his song taking two steps back from the bars a turning on the heels of his large steel-toe boots. Holding the

last note of the song the clown extends his arms out while still holding the wand in his right hand.

    “Ta-Da.” The clown says and the officer still holding the firearm in his mouth pulls the trigger. 

By this point I’m crammed as far into the corner of the cell as physics will allow, my hands are shaking and I’ve lost all bladder

control. The clown lowers himself to the concrete floor sitting cross legged and tapping his foot on a bar.

    “Have you got some magic in ya my squishy pants friend? I’ll bet you do, I’ll you have a few really good ones.”

Quickly I shut my eyes and tried putting myself some place else in my mind while praying to myself aloud. All falls silent. The

room feels empty. I open my eyes. The clown is no longer sitting on the floor. I don’t see him anywhere. Then directly in my ear

from above me on the top bunk I hear him whisper.

    “Would you like to see a trick?”

    He begins to chuckle and laugh to himself as he hops down from the bunk. Stepping backwards from me he raises his arms.

My heart sinks, I feel as if I’m on a roller coaster about to go over its big drop. The laughs. My heart rate increases even more.

The coaster has started its decent. I now feel like I’m running at a dead sprint.

    The clown yells, “Ta-Da”, and the entire building jumps from its foundation slamming to the earth hard and the cell door

explodes from its slides. Total complete chaos breaks out as alarms sound and the fire system causes cascaded of water to rain

down from all directions. The clown takes a bow and stands staring at me, and with a chuckle and a wave of his hand through the

falling water. I blink and he’s gone.