Author: Ken Poyner

Clowns usually start falling into town ten days before the rut. Local authorities keep count of them, and at the appropriate number fence off Patriot Park, start herding them in. There is no exact day the rut starts—whether the time is driven by hormones or proximity en masse, no one knows. Vendors surrounding the park sell mostly to the curious, not participants. When the tribe of The Big Red Shoes arrives, we know it is about to begin. We get our tickets. Of the last rut’s infant clowns? Such is not our concern. We look to the show only.

Nothing like a clown drive! Once the smaller herds have been collected, the great mass is routed through town to the railhead. Children watch from second-floor windows, parents fearing children might be lost or abducted in the crush. There is an air of danger in unbroken clowns, especially in aggregate. Still, there are street vendors, food stands, and commemorative clown prods. But it can be a burden on the citizenry. After years of randomness, the drive is restricted to simply the thirty-first of September. Streets will be blocked, contracts committed. We prepare for the first coming of that day.

Two teens heading into the woods to practice what they had learned in sex education class found him. Face up, fake red nose, bowler hat disturbed, over-sized daisy leering out of his pocket, size twenty-five shoes angled spitefully up. There were no visible damages. After the teens had gotten as far as lesson three, they fetched sterner citizens, explaining they innocently walked up on a clown expired. We all expect these things to happen. None of us knows how long clowns persist, or why they fail. If they had progressed to lesson five, the teens would not have noticed him.