Bob stepped out of his front door at quarter to seven, the same way he did every morning, with a cup of coffee in his hand. It was black coffee, a new habit of his. He had abandoned creamer, milk and sugar when his wife had left him and taken the kids. He was already dressed- clad in a sky blue dress shirt with a matching tie and beige slacks and black dress shoes. He walked down the front steps out of his house and down his driveway to the edge of the street. To his left, at the end of their own driveway, a clown and a mime were standing there, like they all did every morning. Silent. Watching.
“Jim,” Bob raised the coffee mug in greeting.
“Bob,” the clown replied.
Bob raised the mug again. “Darlene,” he said to the mime. Darlene said nothing. She hadn’t said a word in over a year. Bob glanced up and down the street, where an ever increasing number of clowns and mimes would gather every morning- either through some strange, mental connection or just because that’s what they did in the morning, but every day, they were out there- to greet the dawn, the morning or whatever it was. Bob took a few more sips of his coffee before shaking his head and turning to walk back up his driveway.
“Hey Bob,” he stopped and turned slightly.
“Yeah Jim?”
“If you want to join us, I’ve got an extra suit.”
“No thanks, Jim, I’m good.”
Still shaking his head, Bob walked the rest of the way back up his driveway, up the steps and into his house again. Some days he really felt like the last sane man in the lunatic asylum.
No one could really pinpoint when the world had started to lose it’s damn mind. Bob seemed to recall first hearing about the clown phenomenon two, maybe three years ago. First, it just seemed like a Halloween prank. Clowns with fake chainsaws. Clowns with baseball bats. Clowns just standing there. There was a sinister edge to it as well: threats against schools and colleges, clowns getting shot for walking down the street in the wrong neighborhood. Everyone assumed that once Halloween was over, it would all die down and things would return to normal.
Except it didn’t. Their numbers grew. They came out of the woods and the shadows of the night and into the cities and towns and the sunlight. They began to organize, march and promote the profession. The general public, the general edifice of civilization was prepared for many things, but they weren’t prepared for this. For all the general harmlessness of clowns- more or less, anyway, the number of people who were absolutely terrified of them was staggering. The fear and the panic was everywhere for what seemed like forever.
Oh, they were bloody months, that fall. Clowns were shot, stabbed, lynched. Whole pogroms as their numbers spread. Coulrophobia gripped the world.
Thing was, though- Bob didn’t mind clowns. Didn’t bother him a lick. He liked his job though. And his house. He didn’t want to leave when the first enclaves were set up for the coulrophobics. His wife, Melissa on the other hand, had fled. He got the divorce papers a month later, shrugged, signed them and didn’t look back. So now, clowns.
No one knew why. Mass hysteria? Psychosis? An elegant and ironic commentary on the ridiculousness of modern life? No one knew. It evolved, grew and developed into a subculture all it’s own. Kids were sitting their parents down for long conversations about fulfilling their dream of becoming a mime. You could major in clowning or mimery or jestery at first one University, then more. Whole buildings were devoted to the field of Clown Studies. Coulrophobia had driven people into their islands of clown-free living, but then coulrophilia had taken over. People began to desire clowns. They were turned on by the silence of the mimes. The electric blue or brilliant red of the wigs. Sanity swirled away, down and down, around and around, but Bob didn’t care. Bob got up at the same time, the same way every day and lived his life as best he could.
His commute to work was in a beige Hyundai. He pulled out of his driveway and headed down the street toward the main road the lead to the freeway, which he took for a nice, easy fifteen minute drive to the corporate offices of Victor Aguirre Industries, a medium sized software company where had worked for the past twelve years. As he turned on to the main road, he flipped on the radio, hoping to catch a little bit of the news before he got to work but what he got was-
“The Great Pagliacci announced his intention to run for President today on a platform of advancing clown rights and clown culture nationwide,” the anchor said. The sound shifted and then there was that voice again, slightly shrill and nasal: “We will reveal the fundamental truth to those that fear us!” Pagliacci said. “We are all clowns on the inside!” With a grimace, Bob turned the radio off. Pagliacci was everywhere these days. No one knew what his real name was or where he had came from, but the media couldn’t get enough of him. His orange hair and shrill nasal voice. It wasn’t enough for people to dress as clowns and mimes and join the lifestyle, no, they had to have clown names now too. They had to leave their old life behind. Bob shook his head and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.
“Silence is good too,” he said to his beige Hyundai. He accelerated out onto the freeway in his beige Hyundai and frowned as he did so. For some reason the color had been bothering him of late and he wasn’t sure why. He scratched his forehead just above the right eye- it was a habit he’d had for years, but he seemed to be doing it more often lately and he wasn’t sure why either. Why did the color of the car bother him so much? He tried to think it through. Was it a fancy car? No. It was solid, dependable, got good gas mileage and thanks to his insistence on keeping up with the maintenance schedule recommended by the dealership, it was in excellent condition. So why was the color bothering him? It never had before- and yet-
Let a little color in your life, Bob, a voice in the back of his head whispered. Find a reason to smile.
But what did the color of the car have to do with it? It was a good car. Solid. Dependable.
Just like you, Bob, the voice whispered again. Aren’t you tired of being beige?
He scratched at his forehead again. His life was great. It was solid. He could afford anything he wanted. He had a nice house. He hadn’t been seeing anyone since the divorce, but he was okay with that. Wasn’t he? He was, right? Maybe it was time to get back on that horse. Maybe it was time to get excited about something or someone again.
You need sparkle in your life, the voice whispered.
You know what? Maybe I do. Maybe I do, thought Bob. With a start he realized that he was about to miss his exit and he quickly jerked his wheel over to get into the right lane, only to be greeted by an angry blare of a car horn as he did so. “Sorry! Sorry!” He called, waving apologetically to the angry looking driver behind him. He turned his indicator on and slowed down as he reached the wide parkway that lead into the industrial park. He turned left and kept driving toward his destination in his beige Hyundai.
Victor Aguirre Industries was housed in a long, steel and glass office building in an office and industrial park that was full of them. Cookie cutter office buildings for cookie cutter jobs. Beige, just like your car, the voice whispered. You need color. Color. Sparkle. Color. He forced the voice back down as he found his usual parking space (the same one every day) and joined the same migration of the office drones into the building like he did every morning.
He perked up a little as he stepped through the doors and headed inside. Clare would be working the front desk and Bob liked Clare. They had a little flirtation going on and although Bob didn’t think he was ready to get into a serious relationship just yet, but he was slowly working up his courage, bit by bit to maybe ask her out on a date. Seeing Clare every morning brightened his day. He waited for the elevator and in his head began thinking of what he might say. Nothing fancy. Just the usual. Maybe see if she wanted to go for coffee?
The elevator doors opened and Bob stepped in and pushed the button for the third floor. Same as he did every day and waited patiently as the elevator took them past the second floor before coming to a stop on the third floor. The doors opened and Bob stepped out, a smile on his face and then froze.
A clown was sitting in Clare’s usual place behind the reception desk. She had the white painted face with a red smile, a bright green nose and a shock of rainbow colored hair. Bob stepped up to the desk and with a start realized that the clown was, in fact, Clare.
“What, Bob? This is my real hair now,” she reached up and patted it. “Don’t you like it?”
“Looks good, Clare…”
“That’s not my name anymore!” Clare snapped. She sounded defensive.
“Oh,” Bob said. “Sorry.”
“I should report you to HR.”
“I’m sorry,” Bob said again. “It’s just that yesterday-”
“Yesterday the old me died,” Clare said. “The Great Pagliacci, Bob- he says we’ve all got a clown inside of us and I found mine and became Rainbow the clown.”
Bob extended a hand. “Nice to meet you, Rainbow.”
“Thanks, Bob,” Rainbow said. “Sorry I snapped at you, by the way. People have been staring at me all morning.”
“That’s okay,” Bob said. “Unless you’re still going to report me to HR?”
“Nope,” Rainbow replied. She leaned forward and Bob leaned down to the desk. “But I’ll save you a slice of cake later though. It’s Doug from accounting’s birthday and Gary sprung for the good chocolate cake.”
“Yum,” Bob replied. “Is it the cake from McGinty’s?”
“You know it!”
“Usual time?”
“2 pm in the conference room,” Rainbow said. “You betcha!”
“Well, I’ll be there,” Bob said.
“I’ll consider it a date,” Rainbow replied.
Bob smiled. “So will I,” he said. “Catch you later Cl-” he stopped himself just in time. “Rainbow.”
“See you then, Bob.”
Bob walked past the reception desk and headed back into the wide sea of cubicles that took up the main floor of Victor Aguirre Industries. Bob’s cubicle was at the edge of the cubicles, along the bank of windows that overlooked the main parking lot. He hadn’t been there at first, but about a year into his tenure at work, the supervisors had switched him around. They had trouble with an employee who liked looking out of windows more than working and felt that Bob would ‘be a better fit there’ and so far, he had proven them correct. He had developed a daily routine, knew how to organize and manage his time and worked his ass off.
This morning, however, something was off. He couldn’t seem to find a groove for some reason. He had a stack of paperwork to review (they were prepping the rollout of a brand new product next month.) He had emails that never seemed to stop crowding into his inbox- it constantly teetered on the edge of spiralling out of his control. They needed to be answered, but his mind kept wandering back to Clare- Rainbow, he corrected himself.
Clare had been attractive before, but seemed to be perpetually single, which amazed Bob. She had long, brown hair, small, thick-rimmed glasses and a pleasant round face. She was basically the polar opposite of his ex-wife, which is why Bob suspected that he liked her so much. But she had never seemed to be very outgoing. There was always that little check there, that part of herself that she held back from people. Bob had always assumed that it was just part of who she was, but this morning. He shook his head, still wondering at it all. Maybe she was right. Maybe The Great Pagliacci was right. Maybe everyone was a clown deep down inside.
As if on cue, his forehead began to itch. He shook his head and turned back to work. It’d be lunch time soon enough and then time for the same, old tired ritual they performed for every office birthday. They gathered in the conference room, with it’s plain grey walls, long wooden table and large windows and glass walls. Everyone would gather and wait until the unfortunate soul whose birthday it was came walking in, usually lead by a supervisor. Cake would be produced. The requisite number of candles would be lit. The group would sing ‘Happy Birthday’ with an air of forced and terrible enthusiasm. Then, they would eat cake, exchange small talk and slowly but surely drift away back to their work for the rest of their day.
But today, it was going to be different, Bob decided. Today, he was going to get off the bench. Today, he was going to ask Rainbow out on a date. A real date. Not cake in the conference room. Dinner. A movie. A drink. Coffee. Maybe all four! He was going to ask her out on a real date- and hopefully, she would say yes.
So, for the next four hours, Bob toiled. And soon, the emails were back under control, the paperwork had reduced to a manageable amount and before he knew it, it was time for lunch. Bob did the same thing for lunch every day. He’d been doing it for years, ever since he had begun at Victor Aguirre Industries. He packed a sandwich, a piece of fruit and a single, solitary yogurt, placed them in a brown paper bag and put them in his briefcase.
He ate alone at his desk. The rest of the office would empty out and flood out to the smattering of restaurants at the edges of the business park, wanting to gain a brief respire from the mountains of email, terraces of paperwork and the sea of cubicles. Bob, however, enjoyed the solitude and the time alone with his thoughts.
At the appointed hour, when the last person had left and it was quiet, Bob reached into his briefcase and pulled out his brown paper sack and sat it on the desk in front of him. For some reason, the sight of it filled him a sense of disdain and disgust and his forehead started itching again. A beige lunch, the voice whispered. It grew harsh, accusatory. You’re so boring. You’re so vanilla. You’re so plain. Let a little color in your life!
Bob forced the voice back and opened his brown paper bag. He pulled out the sandwich first. White bread. Like your life. He pulled the sandwich out of it’s clear, plastic bag and picked it up with two hands. He stared at it for a long moment before biting into it and tasting something… sweet?
What the hell?
It was peanut butter and chocolate and, Bob had to admit, it was delicious. See? The voice whispered. What did I tell you? It was a refreshing change of pace from his usual. He tended to alternate between a nice, simple, ham and cheese with mustard, tuna salad or salami and pepper jack cheese with a smear of mayo. This was… new. This was… delicious. Halfway through his sandwich, Bob sat back and realized that he was happy. In fact, he was happier than he could remember being for a long time. But-
When had he made the sandwich?
He began to go back through the events of the previous night, trying to remember when he had made his lunch. He couldn’t remember. He tried to remember. He could feel his mind recoiling in confusion and the first faint stirrings of fear. He had no memory of making his lunch. None. Every night, before he went to bed, he had the same routine. Dinner. (Usually a television dinner of some kind.) Then, he’d sit on his couch, flip through the channels, watch the local news and the first fifteen minutes of the late night show and at precisely 10:45 PM, he’d turn the television. Then, he would pack his lunch, turn the lights off and head upstairs to bed. Then, he would brush his teeth, get into his PJs, get in bed and go to sleep. His routine was precise. He could remember doing it hundreds of times, if not more. So how come he couldn’t remember making the sandwich?
Bob kept eating, trying to puzzle it out. He had been tired lately. But not so tired that he wouldn’t remember doing something as basic as making his lunch. He shook his head and did the best he could to put it out of his mind. It was probably nothing.
The rest of his lunch break passed by in solitude and before he knew it, people were starting to return to the office and soon the place was buzzing once more. More emails needed to be answered. More paperwork needed to be completed. As soon as he had finished one email another would arrive. He would get up and go deliver a piece of paperwork to some functionary or supervisor and return to his desk only to find that four more forms had arrived to replace the ones that he had just completed.
This is all a joke. The little voice in the back of his head whispered. Why does any of this matter? This is all a joke. This is all a joke… he pushed the voice back again. You can’t ignore me for ever. I’m going to come out and play one of these days.
Bob shook his head a few times to clear his thoughts and got back to work. It was the nature of the beast. He was a cog in the machine that was Victor Aguirre Industries. It wasn’t a glamorous job, by any stretch of the imagination. The salary was reasonable, the benefits surprisingly good for the private sector and the work was easy enough. It could get a little repetitious after awhile, he had to admit, but it was a Monday to Friday, 8am-5pm gig and there were worse things out there in the world. He put his shoulder to the grindstone and kept at it and before he knew it, he looked up and it was quarter to two.
There was a steady stream of people heading toward the conference room. News of the ‘good cake’ from McGinty’s had spread and people wanted to get in their first, that way, Bob knew, they could sing, get their slice of cake and get back to their own desks as quickly as possible. He finished typing up the email he was working on and sent it on it’s way before pushing back from his own desk, standing up and pushing his chair neatly and carefully back into place. He stretched his arms skyward and pushed them out as far as they could go before letting them drop back down to his sides. Then he set his shoulders, worked up his courage and headed to the conference room.
As he entered the conference room, Bob saw with disappointment that there was quite a crowd around Rainbow already. I guess her big change had made people very curious, but in a genuine way it seemed. People weren’t looking at her like a circus freak or a zoo animal- they were looking at her like a person and she was smiling, laughing and chatting away with a whole group of people. Bob smiled, because it was heartening to see. He found a spot near the edge of the room which looked like the beginnings of the line to get cake.
“Hey Bob.”
It was Jerry, one of Doug’s colleagues from accounting. Jerry was a stocky, odious guy that had a hairline that was receding fast and a fondness for Ed Hardy t-shirts and hitting on co-eds at the local chain restaurant in his spare time. Bob detested him but Jerry didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t care.
“Jerry,” Bob replied.
“I heard Gary sprung for the good from McGinty’s,” Jerry said.
“I think everyone did, looking at the size of this crowd,” Bob said.
“What do you think about Clare?” Jerry said, nodding his head in her direction. “Damn shame, huh?”
“What do you mean? She seems happier than she’s ever been.” Bob shrugged.
“You say so, man,” Jerry said. “She was like a six before, maybe an eight if she would drop fifty pounds. But now? No one’s going to want to tap that.”
“You’re a class act, Jerry,” Bob said, a touch of sarcasm in his voice. “Hard to believe you’ve been married three times.”
“Hey man,” Jerry replied. “I just tell it like it is.”
Bob said nothing to that and soon Jerry began talking to someone else. The room filled up- almost to the brim and then Gary entered with Doug in tow.
“Everyone! Everyone! Quiet, please!” Gary waved his hands. The room fell silent.
“Well, we all know why we’re here,” Gary said. “Our man Doug from accounting is celebrating a special day!” The room erupted in cheers and applause with a few hoots and hollers and a “Yeah!” along with a “Way to go, Dougie Boy!”
“It’s the big 5–0!” Gary said as the noise died down again. “So, to show him how much we appreciate him, we’ve got cake! Chocolate! The good stuff from McGinty’s! And Doug, we’ve got a special song to sing for you! Everyone ready? On three.. One, two, three…”
They all began to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ as Doug stood next to Gary, smiling but shifting from foot to foot in that awkward way a person did when they were the focus of so much attention. They wrapped up the song, Doug said ‘thank you’, the room erupted into applause and then a couple of people stepped up to the table and began handing out slices of cake.
People began to head out as soon as they had their cake, but not Bob and, he noted, not Rainbow either. She was still talking to a few people, but he noticed that she was casting glances in his direction now and again. So Bob waited at the edge of the room, eating his cake as slowly as he could until finally, both of them were alone.
“Taking your time with that cake, I see,” Rainbow said, as she walked over to him. She nodded at the table. “Why don’t you sit and stay awhile?”
Bob smiled, mid-mouthful and pulled out a chair and sat. Rainbow did as well. When he had finally finished chewing and had swallowed his mouthful of cake, he spoke. “It’s the good stuff from McGinty’s,” he said. “Gary isn’t that generous all that often.”
“Only with his favorites,” Rainbow replied.
“You mean it’s not because Doug is a good employee?”
Rainbow laughed. “I think you and I both know different. Doug’s a good guy, but he’s not exactly the best accountant they’ve got.”
“It’s all a cover,” Bob said. “I bet he’s got Dougie skimming money into some slush fund for him somewhere.”
Rainbow smiled. “Probably.”
They said nothing for a moment, the silence hanging between them. Bob felt the tension stretching between them and was about to stuff the last bite of cake into his mouth when he couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Hey Rainbow,” he said. “I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner me with sometime.”
Her face fell. “You mean, like a date?”
“Well, yeah, if you want,” Bob said. He saw her expression. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be a date. We can just like hang out or something, you know?”
“Bob, I really like you,” Rainbow said, “but with my big change, I’m really concentrating on following the teachings of The Great Pagliacci and he’s very insistent that clowns can only date or be in relationship with other clowns. People who aren’t clowns or mimes just won’t understand.”
“Oh,” Bob said. “I understand.”
She leaned forward and touched his hand. “I really like you, though,” Rainbow said. “If you would join us, maybe things could be different.”
“Join you?” Bob said. “Like, become a clown?”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “I mean, look around you. Don’t you ever wonder what you’re doing all of this for? Don’t you realize what a huge joke modern life really is? We come to work in these dreary little offices for jobs that make us miserable and for what? Just to retire on pittance and then die?”
Bob said nothing and considered that. “But… that’s all there is. That’s life.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that,” Rainbow said. She pushed back from the conference room table and stood up. “You should let a little color in your life, Bob,” she said. “You might be surprised what you find out about yourself.” Then, she turned and walked out of the conference room.
Bob took his plastic fork, stabbed the last chunk of cake and shoved it into his mouth. He slowly chewed it, swallowed it and then, almost as if someone else was in control of his own body, he stood up, picked up his plate and took it to the small garbage can in the corner and threw it away. Then, he left the conference room and headed back to his desk.
The rest of the day flew by in a strange daze. Bob couldn’t concentrate, he just kept hearing Rainbow’s words echo in his ears over and over again. You should let a little color in your life, Bob. Around four o’clock that afternoon, Bob realized that Rainbow was absolutely right. In every respect, modern life was one big joke. We were all just hamsters on a wheel, running around and around and around and for what? It’s not like he was happy, Bob realized. It was just… life. It was all there was. It was what you did. Happiness didn’t enter into the equation. You should let a little color in your life, Bob.
Then the day was over and he was walking out of the office to his car, still in a daze, still pondering what she had said. Maybe they were right. Maybe The Great Pagliacci had a point. Maybe we were all clowns on the inside. Trying to distract himself, he turned the car radio on and didn’t even bother to turn it off again when one of The Great Pagliacci’s sermons came out of his speakers. He just drove home. Letting the words fill the car, not hearing any of them. You should let a little color in your life, Bob.
He was home, still in a daze. Still running on automatic through the same routine he did every day and had done every day for years. He ate his TV dinner. Watched some television. Drank a beer. Went to bed. He tossed and turned for a long time before finally, he fell asleep and then he began to dream.
He dreamt that he became a clown and went to work the next day and asked Rainbow out again and she said yes. They went on date after date and fell in love and then he got on one knee and asked her to marry him and she said yes. They had a clown wedding, went on their clown honeymoon, had lots of clown sex and made lots of clown babies. Years seem to pass in a blink of an eye and soon they were older, the last of the kids were moving out. Their nest was finally empty and as the last kid pulled out of their driveway to head off to clown college, Rainbow took him by the hand, lead him back inside and upstairs to the bedroom. She reached up and touched his white face paint and pulled him down into a passionate kiss before pushing him backward onto the bed. She climbed on top of him and kept kissing him before she stopped, looked him and smiled. “Aren’t you glad you let a little color in your life, Bob?”
With a start, he woke up in his own bed, covered in sweat. Shaking his head and trying to ignore how excited and arousing he had found the dream, he threw the covers off and hopped out of bed. He needed to go to the bathroom. He walked across the room and into the master bathroom and flipped the lights on. His forehead began to itch again and he scratched at it as he lifted the toilet seat to urinate. It kept itching as he peed and the skin felt different somehow, almost swollen. He shook himself off, flushed the toilet and lowered the seat and stepped over to the sink to wash his hands. He peered into the mirror. Something was wrong with his forehead. It almost looked like he had a sunburn or a blister that was about to pop.
He tugged at the peeling piece of skin and froze. Where he had pulled the peeling skin up, the skin underneath it was… white. Perfectly white. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t right at all. He pulled again and another piece of skin came off in his hand. Moving faster, he pulled more and more off, until he stopped and stared at his face in the mirror. He laughed out loud. It made sense, didn’t it. Still laughing, even louder now, alone in his house like a crazy man, he tugged and pulled at what he thought had been his skin. They were right. The Great Pagliacci, all of them had been right. Underneath it all, we were all clowns. Whether we wanted to admit it or not.
Bob, no not Bob, he couldn’t be Bob anymore… “Sparkles,” he said aloud, stared into the mirror. White face, nose painted red and a red painted smile that ran beautifully from ear to ear. The only thing that was missing… he reached up and dug under the top of the mask that, until yesterday, he had been convinced was his fat, balding middle aged head. He dug all his fingers underneath it, loosening it and tugging and it and finally, with one last effort it came free, revealing a shock of electric blue hair on top of his head.
“Sparkles.”
