Clowns: 4 Lines of Prose

The doctor was perplexed by the man's symptoms: wide darting eyes, heavy sweats, stuttering, the hospital curtain clenched tightly between his ashen fingers. As Dr. Jones listened to the halting mutters, he noticed the words evil, red, and harlequin made the man's heart race harder. Dr. Jones' head snapped up fiercely, his face as sour as vinegar lemons. "Who the hell brought a clown to visit someone who is clourophobic?!" he shouted as the smiling painted face of a French clown receded from the curtains hanging on the other side of the bed.

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Laying in the bed listening to the pips and clicks of the machines, I am drawn to the sound of the shuffling-flapping rhythm of footsteps. I slip out of bed and walk to the door of the room, slowly craning my neck to see who is responsible for the flapping sound, but no one is there: the hall is empty. I turn to go back to my bed, convinced it is a hallucination from the heavy medication, and see a brightly colored clown holding a bunch of balloons looking at my body in the bed. "Oh shit," I mutter, "I'm in clown hell."

*** Daily Writing Practice ***

And yet ANOTHER side note: these writings are a collaboration between Vicki and I, being we each wrote two lines of each paragraph. Thank you Vicki! It was fun.