by Greg Wilburn
ONE DAY LATER (Lana’s apartment)
A storm blew in, and I had no choice. I had to see Lana. I didn’t want to, but when I remembered I’d no more money left to use, I had no other choice than to end up sopping wet on her doorstep. She rushed me in, half scolding my and half kissing me, asking me where I’d been and what I’d been up to. I really had no excuses, and when she wouldn’t believe my ridiculous stories about being in a coma or captured by the local gangs—I’ve never been noteworthy for any kind of deceptiveness—I had to spill my guts.
Surprisingly, she seemed to understand what I was saying—despite her unbelief—at what happened eight years ago and what was happening now. After I finished, she told me that I’d been working too hard and just needed some rest. Normally, I would’ve protested and insisted until she could see the horrors of what had happened and what was to come, but she was too kind. She shushed me, placed my head in her lap, began to stroke my hair, and sang me her favorite lullabies. It was all quite soothing, and much needed at that. I wanted to make her understand the evil lurking not far, but in that glorious sensation of safety in her lap, I lost to wanting to enjoy that moment with such a beautiful woman.
I keep drifting in and out of consciousness, seeing black and then the full forms of the apartment in which she lives. It’s so tidy, and I love her all the more for being a center of stability, a comfort in my insanity. In the back of my mind, as I slip in and out of darkness, I’m worried about the clown.
Not so much the clown, but more myself and Lana. The possibility of her erasure, and mine as well. No. We won’t be erased. I won’t let that happen. I can protect her, I know I can. Something might be different this time. I can stop this. I can.
I know because of these hopeful lullabies she’s singing to me. They seem to be driving out the chatter and the squeaks, and it feels as though the clown is dissipating into nothingness, never to return again. Maybe now I can sleep, and when I wake, this will all be a nightmare long forgotten. There’s hope, and I know I’ve won.
SIX HOURS AGO (Immangton Square)
The clown erased Lana. I woke up this morning and Lana was gone. My blurred vision cleared to find me alone on her itchy couch, and across the glass coffee table stood that fucking clown, chattering and squeaking louder than before. It was closer too. It stood not three feet away, looking into me with its all-consuming eyes.
I cried. I even screamed at the clown and accused it of murder. I spent a good couple of minutes railing into it, but it was no use. The unfeeling being before me simply stood there, invisibly shivering and waiting. For what I wonder?
Me. It was waiting for me to give up and let it have me. I’m a coward—really I am—because I ran. I ran and ran until my legs couldn’t carry me any further. I ended up in Immangton Square at the center of town, lost to anyone around me, even myself. As I rounded the tall statue of the town’s founder—Shimel Ignus—for the third time in my paranoia, I saw the clown—that goddamned clown—sitting on the bench closest to me.
I’m curious more than anything as I sit here next to it now in my final moments. At least what I believe are my final moments. Depending on this clown, my final existing moments could be minutes, hours, decades even. It’s really up to the clown, not me. I’ve given up. I’m finished. I’ve nothing left. And what’s curious is that it’s sitting. It’s never sat before. Maybe it knows that I’m ready. I’m ready to die. I’m ready to be erased, just like all the others.
Or I think it might do something else to me. Why else would it have stalked me relentlessly for these eight long years just to erase me? It wouldn’t. It wants something more, and that something more scares me. Hopefully it isn’t painful. I’m going to give it whatever it wants, and my simple hope is that it makes my death as painless as possible.
And, now that the clown seems to have slid an inch or two closer to me—our hands are nearly touching—I’m confused and scared more than anything else. Why me? I’ve never done anything of note or significance. I’m a nobody. No one of value. Why would this stupid clown want me when it could go after anyone else in the world?
Maybe that’s just it. Maybe it’s because I’m a nobody that this bastard clown wants me and me alone. This clown exists as a nobody, just like me. It’s possible that I’m the only one who is as much a nobody as this clown here. And in that, in finding another nobody unlike any other, it thinks that with me—whether it gets closer, becomes me, or eats me—it can become a somebody. Maybe it just needs the body part.
By doing whatever it has to do to me, it takes off the no in nobody, and it can finally have a body. My body. It no longer has to live in the liminal spaces of the universe and can finally exist as a reality. At my expense though. It could be that. Yes, I believe it is that. I’m the ideal host, and this horrid clown is the parasite waiting to infect me
Or I could just be getting philosophical as my demise nears. I’m looking into its hollow and sorrowful eyes now. It’s getting ready to do what it’s going to do to me. The bile working its way up my throat due to the painful knotting of my stomach tells me so. But in the end, who cares? I’m nobody, and that’s all I’m ever going to be, no matter what happens.
Just like this clown.
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Thank you for taking the time to read this work. I hope you enjoyed it and will look forward to other works I bring forth in the future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Michael Matchell, for all of his hard work and dedication.
To my family, for all of their support and encouragement.
