Send in the Clowns

2012 was nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy. Oh, it happened but not with the big, cataclysmic thunderclap that all those granola munching, self-important, pothead, conspiracy theorists claimed it would. The world as we know it ended on my fortieth birthday alright, December, twenty-first, two-thousand and twelve. But it had been coming since the turn of the 16^th century. It crept up on us so slowly that only a few felt the brush of its white gloved hand.

We have always been persecuted, for centuries those of us who didn’t fall for the conspiracies and distraction tactics have been burned at steaks, drown, hung by our necks from ropes, taken away to detention facilities, and tucked away in padded cells. They have fed us all the pills in the world… crazy… criminals… witches… they have called us many things but now they seek us out, worship us as oracles. Some have packed up their bitterness and retreated so far underground they will never be found again. The rest of us, the ones who have something to loose, we take what we can in trade from you fools so that we can survive. Don’t even make the mistake of believing that any of us do it because we care about those who shunned and mistreated us.  We only want what the rest of you do; to live out the rest of our days warm and with full bellies.

I have survived forty years like this and am an old woman now. I did this for my children and grand children. When I am gone I don’t know what will happen but I have trained those who also see well and this is all I could have done to ensure the family’s safety. I have contracts signed in blood, this in exchange for my services, contracts that promise their protection… but in the end these are just words on paper.

Sometimes I laugh at you all. I laugh until my weary old bladder gives way and I have to change my clothes. Not an easy task with a full body cackle wracking my arthritic joints. You all see what has happened now. Isn’t hindsight a wonderful invention? Now that the aliens, who tried to help and warn us for decades, openly deliver what news we still get in their true forms rather than disguising themselves as humans… now that the Olympic athletes compete freely with their gears agleam and wires aglow in a state of pre-programmed pride… now that all of the politics have been decided for us… Now you can see what puppets we have been, but what good does it do you? If only you would have listened instead of ridiculing and making jokes. If you hadn’t been such fools we wouldn’t have to live in a world like this.

It was all distraction. All the wars, the political debate, the religion… all of it was just a way to busy your pathetic little minds. All of it fabricated and presented to us as acts in one long comedy of errors. But none of you listened, did you? If my survival didn’t depend on your pathetic need for guidance I would delight in watching your demise just as I did in the beginning.

How did none of you see it? The politicians spewing their rhetoric only to be exposed doing the very things that they so easily convinced you that you shouldn’t be doing by the aliens. None of them cared what you thought. You were a joke to them. How could you see them for anything other than clowns without their makeup? Oh yes, they freely wear that pancake garbage now. Their faces painted white around dead eyes, false smiles drawn around mouths full of fangs they no longer file down, baggy Technicolor trousers protecting those barbed tails, and over sized shoes and gloves housing razor sharp talons the size of magic markers. Now you see the daemon clowns for who they really are because they let you. And they let you because you fear them as you should have all along. But you wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t listen to me or anyone else who knew what they were.

You labeled us, made up names for our “condition”! Coulrophobia! Ha! Such fools you all are! My suffering is over. Now that you all see them for what they really are, now that you all cower in fear and run away, smothered in your hysteria at their sight, I can rest easy. I now understand that my fear was never of clowns but of what the rest of you didn’t’ see. I wasn’t frightened for myself or of what they would do to me; I was frightened by what you people were going to let them do to this world and now that is has happened I no longer have anything to fear.

You are their slaves. You work for scraps and what shelter they allow you to have, when they allow you to have it. Those of you brave or stupid enough to lodge a complaint when you are mistreated in an out of the ordinary way, those of you who dare seek medical care or make requests for aid suffer through the agonizingly ridiculous task of communicating with mimes and every last one of you leave in defeat if you leave with your lives.

I don’t’ know how much time I have left here; it could be five years or another twenty, although I do hope that I don’t live to be a hundred-years-old. I do know that I will not make it to see the uprising. The plans are in motion and I know this because I have been involved from the beginning but we are decades away from being organized enough to take them on and succeed. I will do my work until my last breath fails to fill my lungs but understand that I do not do it for you who let this happen. I do it for mine and mine alone.

The only satisfaction that I have is knowing that one day the revolution will come and that those of my children’s, children’s, children’s, children who survive will live in a world free of clowns. This thought brings me peace on most days. And the days when I am so wracked with despair I feel I will never move from my bed again the thought of your faces lifts me from my tattered bedding.

Forcing myself to recall my fortieth birthday, that crisp cold winter solstice night as we exited Mary’s Club to hail a cab, the night we first heard that damned bastardized, Wagneresque rendition of Judy Collins’ “Send in the Clowns” blaring from every rooftop of every building in every city of every nation… the night the clowns revealed themselves for who they really are in mass… it is the looks of confusion and terror on your ridiculously naïve faces that are my driving force when I can find nothing else to fuel my soul; for I am a bitter old woman and it will soon be my time to go.

©Katie Cahill

The Six Year Haunting

It is the spring of 1979; I am seven years old and exiting the big old Victorian house I grew up in to face and unseasonably warm coastal day. The sky is a glorious shade of blue dotted with the fluffiest of little white clouds. A gentle breeze carries the chirping of all the neighborhood birds and every flower seems to be blooming in unison.

My brothers are nowhere in sight so I walk around the house to find my pink and blue Big Wheel. It is such a grand day that even this well used toy looks shiny and new. I am feeling so carefree that before I know it I find myself casually riding my Big Wheel down the middle of 5^th street, which is the main street in our little town. This should be my first clue that something is amiss because my mother would never allow me to ride my Big Wheel in the street, but the smile on my face is too overpowering to give this detail much thought.

There I am in my favorite blue velour dress with blond pigtails flowing gracefully in my wake enjoying this unlikely ride as if I am seeing the sun for the first time in my life when the white can revs its engine behind me.

I can’t see who is driving it nor can I seem to steer my tiny vehicle to the side… the van is not making an effort to drive around me so I do what feels like the only logical thing and begin to pedal faster; the van’s speed also increase. In fact, no matter how quickly I pedal that van matches my speed staying about a half a car-length behind me.

A healthy panic begins to settle in right about the time I realize that I have passed the market for a second time but have no recollection of making the three right turns that would make it possible. It is also this moment that I notice the sky has turned a murky gray and the wind has picked up.

I pass the market again and this is when I hear the music. Not only do I hear music, it is the only thing I can hear. The thickening air eats up the noise of the van pursuing me; it consumes the chirping of the birds and blocks all other sounds of daily life. I hear no wind, no rain, nothing but that music. It is as if “Pure Imagination” is somehow being piped directly into my body as I hear it with my entire being.

It is storming now. I pedal faster, so fast the blue ribbons holding my pigtails come loose and fly away. I am pedaling so fast that everything is a blur. I only know that I am still repeatedly passing the market because the neon beer signs in its front window add a moment of electric color to the otherwise steely gray of the sky, which is now giving birth to a silent thunderstorm.

I must be pedaling 100 miles an hour. Every time I look over my shoulder I see that van right behind me… it looks like it is gaining on me.

The song is playing louder now. I am out of breath and my body aches. I can’t keep this up much longer.

I begin to cry. My hair is now plastered to my face by salty tears and rain and I cannot see. The Big Wheel begins to wobble; I know it is only a matter of time before I crash.

Hysteria takes its hold when I feel hot breath on the back of my neck and turn to find that the van has become a giant Rottweiler. It is barking and slobbering just inches from my face yet there is still no sound but “come with me, and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination” playing over and over on a hellish loop in my head.

Terrified and near collapse I realize that I can no longer pedal. My legs have turned to rubber. I just accept my fate.

I jump off my Big Wheel and hit the pavement with bone crushing force then tumble to the wet grass on the side of the road… the van sized dog pounces on me and as I feel the first tearing of flesh my eyes fly open.

I am screaming so hard my throat hurts. I am surrounded by soft, warm blankets and stuffed animals. The confusion is more terrifying than the dream until I look up and see the dog’s face snarling and snapping at me on my bedroom wall as if it were being projected straight from hell.

I hear my mother’s voice telling me “it is OK, it was just a dream”. I hear my youngest brother crying while he asks my father what is wrong with me.

I thrash and scream until I collapse in an exhausted, sobbing heap with my head in my mother’s lap. The dog is gone. My mother and father will protect me. I am safe… until the next time the dream takes me. This is how it will be for the next six years.

©Katie Cahill

A Treasure Lost

Herbert can be found in his front yard on this chilly fall day; he is frantically digging amongst the wilted and sopping wet chives that have gone to seed. If you were looking for him yesterday he could have been found here as well, but three feet to the left and two feet up the gentle slope of the flower bed. He has been here all week churning up the soil in small sections. Last week he did the same in the back yard. He went through all of the now desolate pots and planters, even braving the hanging baskets, and he tore through the English ivy that slowly creeps over from the neighbor’s yard for good measure.  The week before that was his first sweep through the front yard.

Herbert remained rather cheerful in his quest until this morning. The rain has him a little dismayed and this has sullied his usually chipper disposition. Well, that is what he would have you believe. The cold hard truth of the matter is that he desperately fears he is losing his mind. If rain really got him all that upset he would be in a crappy mood for more than nine months of the year; this is Oregon.

Herbert distinctly remembers burying his wonderful treasure in the yard, specifically the front yard. It was a sunny day last spring and he chose the spot very deliberately. It was perfect, far enough from the driveway that it wouldn’t be easily disturbed by people coming and going, yet not close enough to the thicket of camellias and  rhododendrons that it would be difficult to burry or find for all the roots. It was directly under the tip of the longest branch of the filbert tree that grows through the middle of the white camellia (this is his favorite tree). Just three paces north of the odd bundle of chives that is the only one growing outside the pretty little row the rest are planted. The spot is wonderfully shaded and sheltered by the vine maple to its right and is by all accounts, exactly the right spot to hide something of value. Herbert would have drawn a map if were able to read or write; illiteracy does have its disadvantages. He didn’t really need to though, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt where he buried that treasure. So why isn’t it here?

He is startled by the resident Cockapoo as he barrels out the front door to wait by the car. “Filthy beast”! He is going to give me a heart attack one of these days!” Herbert mumbles as he scrambles behind the shelter of the garden wall. He suspected the dog of digging up his treasure at first but the ground seemed undisturbed and a dog would surely not be capable of any sort of stealth, or covering his tracks in any remotely successful way.

“Damnit”! Where could it have gone? I have looked everywhere! All of my usual hiding places are empty and I know I put it right here!” Herbert said to himself as carefully side stepped back to the spot his treasure had been buried four short months ago. He threw a little fit, jumping up and down on the spot in question as if to punctuate the final two words of his statement.

“Have you talked to Stephon”? Herbert whipped around at this intrusion to his brooding. It was just Dave. “You shouldn’t sneak up on me like that! You scared me half to death”! Dave gave his friend a questioning look. “Sorry, I can’t help it… I am just quite. You seem a little jumpier than usual anyway, what’s going on”? Herbert sighed and threw a pebble he had been examining to the ground. “I will tell you what is going on! I buried my treasure right here in this very spot last spring and it is gone! G-O-N-E, gone! I have looked everywhere, turned this yard upside down and inside out to find it and let me tell you, it is nowhere to be found”! Dave chuckled in the annoying way that he does, as if to say that he knows something you don’t. He asks his friend again “Have you talked to Stephon”?

Herbert cocks his head slightly and replies “No, why would I want to talk to that ass? “Steph-ON”, what kind of pretentious boob pronounces their name like that? Everyone knows his name is “Steven”, that is what his mother calls him for crying out loud”! Dave sighed and started to turn around; the other side of the flower bed looked much less hostile. “Wait”! Herbert shouted without needing to shout. After all, Dave is so slow that he hadn’t even finished his turn. “What does HE have to do with this anyway”? Dave would have stopped to finish the conversation but he was already committed to the change in course he just finished. “Look, I don’t really want to get involved, just go talk to him”.

Herbert didn’t find Stephon until the next morning. He interrupted his bath but didn’t really care about being polite at this point. He doesn’t even like the jerk anyway. “Ahem. Sorry to intrude but I was recently informed that you may have information regarding the whereabouts of my missing treasure”. Stephon looked down at Herbert from his bath and smirked. “Why on earth would I want anything to do with YOUR treasure”? He said in that haughty nasal wine that drives Herbert crazy. “I have no idea why you would want anything to do with MY treasure or anything else of mine. What I do know is that I was told to speak to you about it and I am here, waiting for an answer”. Stephon hopped out of the bath, not caring that he splashed water all over Herbert.

“Was it that Dave guy? He is always lurking around the yard watching and listening, he should really learn to mind his own business before someone has to teach him a lesson”. Stephon’s voice was adding to the headache that yet another sleepless night had bestowed upon poor Herbert. “I will just say that I had an interaction with a “reluctant informant” yesterday and was told to come speak to you about this”. Stephon was now performing a visual scan of the flowerbed in search of Dave. “Look, I found your stupid little treasure alright; I found it, dug it up, and ate it. It didn’t have your name on it”.

Herbert was furious! He stamped up and down and began yelling. “That was my treasure and you know it! You have been watching me search for it for weeks! How could you just sit by and watch me knowing…”? He was so angry that he began losing track of what he was saying, which wasn’t helped by Stephon’s ear piercing laughter.

Stephon stretched his wings and flew to a low branch on the filbert tree where he had a hard time composing himself. Scrub Jays really are viciously rude birds. As his laughter wound down he began shaking the branch he came to rest on. “Listen, you ridiculous little squirrel, it isn’t as if there is only one nut on this tree! You are being preposterous! There are plenty to go around”. With that a nut dropped from the still quivering branch and plopped right down on Herbert’s aching head.

Herbert stood, staring at Stephon with his mouth agape. “I have a snail to talk to, later loser” he shouted has he took flight. Herbert caught a glimpse Dave cautiously pulling his head inside his shell from the relative safety of the rosemary bushes that are nestled in behind the birdbath. “Oh well”. Herbert shrugged, put the new filbert in his mouth and headed off in search of a better place to hide treasures.

©Katie Cahill

The End at the Rainbow

“There is a reason you never hear of anyone finding the end of the rainbow”… your grandfather’s words echo in your head. You would feel like a real ass chasing down a seemingly half crazy, yet harmless old man’s unbelievable story were it not for your great aunt. You laugh to yourself because you know that is just another lie in the series of lies you have been telling yourself for two and a half decades… the lies that still allow you to take yourself seriously long after your colleagues laughed you out of the university and an actual paying career… the lies that make your ex-husband wrong for leaving you because you had more interest in chasing “fairy stories” than settling down to start a family. You shake your head and remind yourself that everyone lives on lies, that if people didn’t tell themselves lies everyday no one would bother to get out of bed.

Bed, now that is a nice idea. In your big cozy bed, faux down comforter pulled up to your chin and your fat orange kitty curled up in the bend of your knees, that is where ninety percent of you wants to be right now. But here you are sitting on a cold, mist covered hill in the rain at the ass-crack of dawn just waiting for a rainbow to appear so you can trudge off down a steep muddy slope on a wild goose chase which will more than likely be made in vain.  The thought doesn’t make you move from your carefully plotted position. At least you have a cup of coffee to warm you. Your cup of coffee and a foolishly enthusiastic assistant who is nearly twenty years your junior, willing to work for close to free, and sleep in your cot on most nights without all the fuss about commitment.

The only thing he ever asks of you is that you recount the story that drove you to this point in your life three out of seven nights a week. It isn’t a bad deal at all; especially when you consider that it always ends in getting laid. You only recently realized that Anthony is probably crazier than you or your grandfather but you tell the story anyway; it keeps him interested and good help is as hard to come by as dates are.

The first time that you heard the story you were seven. You remember being so excited to tell your grandfather about the rainbow you saw while on an outing at the park but did not expect anything other than the cheerful response all of your stories got from him. He was a kind and jovial old man, which is probably why the story he told you that day stuck with you for all of these years.

The moment you jumped in his lap and began the fervent recounting of your rainbow sighting a strange darkness settled over the old man’s cheerfully weathered face; a manufactured smile remained on his face until you ended your story with the childish claim that you “could have walked to the end of that rainbow and stole that leprechaun’s gold right away from him”. The expression he wore immediately following that statement seemed to cover the sky with clouds. “Little girl, there is a reason you never hear of anyone finding the end of the rainbow”. There were extra stones in the gravel of his voice along with a desperate ferocity that simultaneously frightened and thrilled you.

Then he told you about that day in the country with his mother. How they packed a picnic lunch for an afternoon of berry picking. How they ran, laughing toward the shelter of the trees when their picnic was ruined by a summer rain storm and how his ten-year-old heart filled with joy when he noticed the rainbow after the shower tapered off. His mother made a game of it for him and his little sister by setting them to the impossible task of finding the end of the rainbow on their walk home. But it wasn’t impossible. They found it. His mother walked right into it, never to be seen again.

Just as you were ready to release the barrage of questions that had been building while you listened, entranced, to your grandfather’s story, your mother shot into the room loudly admonishing her father for filling your head with nonsense and lies. She forbade him from ever speaking of the subject to you again and he never did. No matter how often you secretly pestered him, he never spoke of it again.

That didn’t stop you from spending countless hours in front of the public library’s microfiche. By the time you were in high school, long after your grandfather’s death, you had read, copied, and tucked away all of the old newspaper articles. You knew that your grandfather had been accused of pushing his mother to her death. It was his outlandish story and how he so insistently stuck to it that made people suspicions. When they couldn’t find her body at the bottom of the ravine, or any trace of her for that matter, it was decided that your young grandfather was witness to a crime so horrific that he made up the story to force the images away. His little sister refused to speak of it or anything else until she was in her late teens.

It was his sister who threw the gasoline on the fire, who turned a girlhood obsession into your life’s work. You were a young woman getting ready to go off to college by then and there was nothing that your mother could do to keep you from hearing your great aunt’s deathbed confession. She confirmed each detail and filled every gap. The thought of that moment still gives you chills. Snapping from your trip back in time you realize that Anthony is bounding from foot to foot in your peripheral vision, arms loaded with cameras and recording devices. He is beaming. Leaping to your feet you take off in what looks to be the direction of the rainbows end.

Twenty-five years of compiling and toiling over statistical data have confirmed that this is the most likely spot for a rainbow to appear in the Continental United States. You have been living in a tent on this very spot for five months of every year for the last five years. You believe to the core of your being that everything your grandfather and great aunt told you is true, yet you are still oddly shocked that July morning when you walk into a clearing just 30 miles from the farm your grandfather grew up on to find what you have been seeking your entire adult life. There it is. The end of the rainbow, just as you had imagined it.

The momentary surprise wears off and you wipe your tears on the sleeve of your dirty hoody as you step into action. A quick glance confirms that your trusty assistant Anthony has all of the equipment set up and you make your first tentative move toward the wall of unearthly light and color. The sudden fear that it will evaporate before you reach it causes you to break into an all out sprint and then you are there, surrounded by glorious light and a warmth that somehow makes you shiver. You can hear Anthony yelling but are so distracted by the fact that you smell lemons you pay no mind to what he is saying.

Awestruck and overwhelmed it takes you a moment to comprehend that what began as a pleasant citrus scent has turned into something else, burning, you smell burnt hair. By the time you realize what is happening the only thought you can form is that you wish your last words could have been something more profound than “son of a bitch, he was right”! You are completely at peace with your demise. It is a comfort knowing that Anthony is recording this. He will personally deliver the recordings, data, and your hard drive to the university that scorned you so long ago. He will make the delivery and at long last all of those who mocked you will know the truth.

This moment of ethereal peace is shattered as your turn to gaze at Anthony a final time and see him running toward you. You would tell him no but speech is no longer an option. Your last barely coherent thought is “shit, I wonder how long it will take someone to stumble upon our equipment”.