Senoj Chronicles: Four

One more Chronicle after this. I’ll come back to it eventually, but I want to keep things spicy. Thank you all for following. Get your buddies to check my blog out, the promo images for my book will be in within the next few weeks hopefully.

They are a rigid bunch, but something menacing and fluid is about them. It floats in the air like some alien sky serpent, intangible and elusive. They all wear clown makeup, but that’s not even the oddest thing. The weirdest thing is that they are the only ones in the audience. This show Candy, Claudius, and I are about to give is solely for them. That doesn’t sit well with me. My stomach gurgles, telling me that something about this family of five clowns is wrong. No, that’s not the correct terminology. The word dangerous fits perfectly.

I stand about ten meters away from the Ring of Fire, now it’s flames hissing and spitting pathetically. They want to get away too. Claudius is uneasy; his tails flicks back and forth anxiously as he watches the Falthes. They sit to the left of us in the bleachers, huddled together, a family of sinister clowns. They cannot be funny. Candy comes from the back, all dourness and dread. She’s smiling her best, but I know that it is fake. Her make up is looking outstanding, and that right there gives it all away. Candy never has her makeup on perfectly. She says part of being a clown requires actual goofiness. Clowns aren’t supposed to be perfect, that’s what makes them funny, that’s what makes them spectacular. Who are the Falthes?

A single clap rises from the group, and I snap my head toward it. A slender man, tall as a tree, and brown as cinnamon stands, his gloved hands slowly kissing another in his applause. He is smiling, his red lipstick showing the perfectness of his teeth. I notice right away, that what he wears is a mix of colors, a rainbow so to speak, but somehow, he makes it all look as if it belongs. Candy shudders as she stands next to me. A jolly tune begins to play, and Candy nudges me forward. I concentrate on the Ring of Fire, heading for it in an array of flips and tricks and fake smiles until finally, I twirl through it gracefully. Claudius follows and then Candy. Claudius makes a show of chasing me, and I run away, waving my hands and shouting like a maniac. Candy calms him down, tells him to sit, and heads over to the Ring of Fire that is now just a red rim of metal. She sticks her arm in it and suddenly with a swift motion pulls it from its place and spins it on her wrist over her head until it is a blur of orange.

I run to her, but the whirl of heat coming from her blazing spin keeps me away. She’s burning herself. I can smell her skin frying. Candy what are you doing? Claudius is making some sound, pleading I guess, afraid. Candy is crying as she continues her flaming dance. Tim Buck is sputtering in the stands, sitting away from the Falthes who all look at Candy as if she is the most unimportant, ugly thing in the universe.

“Candy!” Tim Buck booms. He wants to say more but is cut off by violence.

I don’t see it. I can’t until it’s already happened. There’s a blade in Tim Buck’s neck. He’s trying to pull it out, but before he can, a short boy with an afro in the color of an ice cream swirl, chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, jumps on him, grabbing the handle and twisting until blood geysers out the fat man’s neck. I can tell from his eyes that he’s dead. I can’t move. What is happening?

Candy is still twirling the Ring of Fire. Finally, she says something, with tears rolling down her beautiful face. “Am I pretty now father? Mother? Am I still useless Eve? Am I still a stain on this world Ben? Am I still not worth anything at all?”

The small boy with the afro comes up, the blood making his little clown face something out of the pits of hell. I try to move toward Candy, wanting to help her. She must be down to the bone by now. How is she acting as if she doesn’t feel the heat? I inch closer to her, but a knife in the dirt stops me. I glare up at the family. A girl, looking just like Candy but with long brown hair, jumps down smiling.

“Still useless little sister. Little Fincher up there can do better than that.”

“You’re just jealous of me!” Candy sneers. The girl dies with laughter as the young man who was beside her floats down beside her. The young man has dark hair and a hawkish nose, cold blue eyes that blast Candy with nothing but hate.

“Candy, we had hoped you would have gotten better. But here you are, still staining the family name. It’s unfortunate.”

Candy’s looks at me. Her face in pain, but not from the fire. This pain is worse. This pain is abandonment. This pain comes from being thrown out like trash.

“Run,” she says to me and flings the Ring of Fire toward the pair. They easily dodge. The last three come down. The father who has stopped his applause, the mother with crimson lipstick and rainbow locks of hair, and the little boy who killed Tim Buck.

The father frowns. “Candy, your mother doesn’t even want to speak to you. She has no words for such…ugliness. Such disorder. Such filth. It’s a shame, but we’ve come to put you down. Your blatant disregard for our name is humiliating.”

I watch Candy. She looks at me and rages. “Senoj, I said get out of here. Run!” She makes a sound with her mouth, and Claudius lunges at me. I try to move, but he swoops me up by my shirt with his teeth and drags me away. I get pulled away by her lion as I watch the mayhem unfold behind me. I never thought in all my days that I would see a family of clown assassins.