Romeo Clown
by
Cindy Rosmus
Each time he fucked her, Chaos had a different face. Sad Clown. Happy Clown.
Best was Demonic Clown. That’s who Maria saw most: black-rimmed eyes, yellow fangs. Nose like a huge, bloody cherry. An awesome body she couldn’t get enough of.
When he choked her during sex, her heart swelled. So what if she couldn’t breathe? There was no thrill like this! And he would never really hurt her.
Or would he?
“It’s just a job,” Chaos said, about clowning. “A shit one.” A wannabe actor, he dreamed of playing Stanley in Streetcar, or Macbeth. He was wired to play Romeo. But any Shakespearean role would do.
Instead, he did Saturday kids’ shows at the library. Brats crawled up his legs as he twisted long, pastel balloons into mutant-looking animals.
Tighter, and tighter, he twisted, like how he squeezed her neck.
“Ditch this guy!” her best friend said. “Before it’s too late. Kinky is one thing. But choking is deviant.”
It hurt Maria to laugh.
A week later was Chaos’s big break: Othello! He landed Iago, but damn, he’d wanted the lead. Not a strangler, but a smotherer.
Either way, Maria died by “Othello’s” hands.
Cindy Rosmus is the editor/art director of the crime fiction webzine Yellow Mama.
Rational Coulrophobia
by
Nathan Pettigrew
There are clowns in our world who condone murder, clowns who cheer when others who hold different beliefs are killed, clowns who gloat on social media after life is lost to violence. These clowns claim to be the good guys, but like vampires, they’re unable to see their evil reflections in a mirror.
Drained of a pulse, of kindness or positive energy, they use their hateful spirits to infect others, smiling only when their disease spreads.
These clowns claim to be outsiders, but they are not victims. They feel nothing, after all, when other human beings harm one another. Actually, I’m wrong. They feel a stupid kind of a joy, the jesters who thrive in malevolence.
When shots ring out, and masses scatter, divided and scared, the clowns call it a victory.
They are far from oppressed, and nowhere near sane. They are blinded by sickness, having convinced themselves that chaos and death should be the order of things.
They want zero opposition, zero discourse, and have zero tolerance for peace and happiness. They don’t want a resolution by which unity is achieved. They just want to dance like the Joker while the world burns.
Nathan Pettigrew was born and raised an hour south of New Orleans. His story “Yemma” was recently awarded 2nd Place in the 22nd Annual Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Competition. Other stories have appeared in Deep South Magazine, Penumbra Online, Stoneboat, Punk Noir, and Roi Fainéant Press.
Clowns
by
Allen Bell
Clowns.
My ten-year-old brother said they painted their faces to hide their evilness. I was five; I didn’t know the difference between bad and evil.
That was until the day my mother walked me home from kindergarten and we passed by the Black Crow tavern, where five police cars were parked outside.
“Mom,” I said. “There’s a clown.” I tried tugging her towards the clown’s direction.
“Just keep walking, son. Don’t look.”
The clown’s hands were cuffed behind his back, his head being guided into the backseat of a police car.
The smoke pit was empty today. Tables and chairs had been knocked over.
On the ground, I saw two big red floppy shoes sticking straight up out of the end of a blanket—a body covered. Blood pooled larger as sirens grew louder.
My mother squeezed my hand, “Cross the street, Taylor. Quick. Quit looking.”
How could I not? The clown in the police car was staring at me through the backseat window with his big clown smile.
Allen Bell is an electrician living in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, who has been creatively procrastinating his story writing for over five decades. He obtained a creative writing certificate from the University of Calgary in 2023. He prefers to write in the noir crime fiction genre and has been published in Yellow Mama; he will also have another story published in Guilty’s flash fiction series this coming October