Impertinent Illumination
Andy threaded his legs through multicolor striped tight pants. He pulled an orange tee shirt over his torso and attached blue suspenders to his waistband. He sat and opened a cosmetic bag sorting through cans and tubes of grease paint and accenting pigments.
Andy turned the lid of a jar counter-clockwise and pushed his fingers into the contents. While smearing white goop as a foundation, Andy's mouth curled up in a smile. His eyes twinkled thinking about the music he would play during the party at which he was to perform.
He worked for weeks on getting the music to encompass the rise and fall of action he felt told his story. He worked on learning every nuance of the instrument he played so that he could master his compositions instead of just belting out distracting background noise.
Andy dragged an oily purple body ink pencil over the white foundation exaggerating his features. He drew a smile around the perimeter of his lips, making them look swollen with joy and then filled in the shape with bright pink. Long eyelashes made from synthetic blue hair were glued onto his lids.
Finally, when his face was out of the jars and on to his skin, Andy wiped his hands with a terry cloth towel and blew on his palms. Glitter flew in the air around him and rained down, sticking into the crevices of the make-up.
Andy was a clown. Completely transformed from flesh and blood to only the shell of a human. Within, Andy was light. Andy started the transformation as a child and thrived on the performance. When he laughed at himself he felt buoyant; as if he was floating effortlessly through his day. When others laughed at him, he felt sublimely effervescent; as if he was just a puff of air drifting on the rays of sunlight in unclouded energy.
But when he performed with knowledge, he felt invisible and invincible. He felt as if he was a part of the very vapor being drawn in and out of his fellow man nourishing their bodies with the necessity of life.
Andy walked bare-footed from his house to a generator. He pulled a cord to engage the motor and then turned a spigot to fill an attached drum with water. The generator heated the water, which was then pumped into pipes that run into the house. When Andy returned to his home and walked into his music room, it was substantially warmer. Andy sat at his calliope and as he pressed the keys, release valves opened to send music and steam billowing into the air. Andy practiced his songs for hours, the whole time becoming brighter with every note.
A squeaky car horn beeped from the curb. Andy craned his neck to look through the window and assure it was the car he was expecting. He closed the valves on the calliope and walked outside to switch off the generator controlling the steam pump.
Another squeaky beep reminded Andy that a car waited for him.
Andy sauntered to the curb and opened the car door, leaned in and asked, “Should I get in the back?”
“No, you're last to pick up.”
Andy turned his head and saw the back was full of glitter he settled into the seat and hummed the song he had been playing.
“You ever notice how you glow after you learn something new,” Andy asked and then continued humming his song?
The driver turned to Andy and laughed. “The only light I know comes from joy.”
Andy looked behind him again and saw the glitter swirl in the back. Andy sighed and felt the cool air on his face.
The car slid into a parking space and the driver turned the key to stop the engine. He turned to Andy and said, “Just laugh tonight. Stop talking about learning.”
Andy slapped his hands together and exclaimed, "Right-Oh!" He hopped from his seat and held the door open for other clowns to emerge from the vehicle.
Eight, Nine, Ten. Andy held the door as the glitter stirred to assemble into full-sized people who then climbed from the automobile. Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen. Andy stretched his neck to see the volume of glitter remaining. Twenty four, twenty five, twenty six. “That's it,” Andy called into the car before slamming the door closed?
The line of clowns walked single file into a white building labeled only with the word Congress.
Inside there were even more clowns and the air was raucous with laughter.
Andy breathed in the sweet aroma rising from the refreshment table. He gorged on pastries and sugared creams until his stomach and mouth were full of treats. Andy collapsed in a molded plastic chair in an intoxicated stupor, his face dressed with a blissful grin.
An obese clown with a polka dotted dress pushed her way through the rows of chairs shoving plastic cups of syrupy fruit flavored drink into the hands of everyone in attendance. Andy drank his portion in one gulp and held out his hand for more.
The lights dimmed and a spotlight rose on a performance stage. The evening's host spoke in alliterative phrases causing cheers and applause in the crowd.
Finally, the clowns were to split into small groups to finalize plans for their performances during the Burgeon Breaking – the ceremony in which the young clowns show their talents under the tutelage of those seasoned.
Andy joined up with other musicians.
An accordion player named Stanley slapped Andy on the shoulder. As glitter floated from the impact and settled back onto Andy's suspender strap, Stanley said, “I see you laughing!”
“It's a joyous night!”
“Huzzah,” Stanley exclaimed! “Readying the young ones for performance!”
Stanley spoke of the ceremony when the clowns would next gather. Tonight was a night to finalize scheduling. Each clown involved in the show had been charged with inspiring children to accept the tenets of clowning as principles of living in joy. Stanley and Andy were charged with children displaying musical talent and helped them to write a piece that will be the crescendo to the Burgeon Breaking.
Andy built a a pedal-powered calliope for the occasion. He composed a song specifically to show the rise of happiness culminating in a fast melody with the children running to the stage from all directions displaying their talents until the energy emitted from the music itself bursts into glitter and pours onto the audience!
ǑǑ
The night of the ceremony, Andy climbed on his rolling cart which was set in motion by peddling a crankset similar to a bicycle. Pipes along the top of the cart emitted an aromatic fog making the room hazy. Bright white light had been dimmed and now shifted from red, to orange, to yellow, and then back to red again cycling through the three colors casting shadows across the faces of the audience.
Andy rode in circles on the stage as the sound from the machine grew louder and louder. From the back of the room, through the seated clowns, ran costumed children screeching with voices that cut through the jingling and jangling of the calliope. The children climbed onto the stage and pulled Andy from the calliope to the floor. The music ceased and the steam from the instrument trickled out until there was nothing left, absent of the player.
The clown children punched and kicked until Andy wasn't moving. A child clown pulled his arm perpendicular to his body and then let it fall limp. A second child did the same to his other arm. Over and over again, there were indications that he was unable to move himself including the final test of his consciousness. The smallest clown child stood at Andy's head and smacked his face to the left and right, making it oscillate with both movements but not regaining stability. The children moved to the front of the stage, held hands and bowed their bodies at the waist. The silence left and drums began thumping softly and then louder with each bow. The audience remained silent.
The drums beat louder and louder through speakers on the ceiling making the audience feel as though they were being pushed together tighter with every beat until a crescendo occurred and the report of the final drumbeat was as loud as a cannon, which coincided with the lights being extinguished and leaving the room in darkness.
Finally, Stanley broke the silence. He walked onto the stage with his accordion wailing. He was joined by other clowns who played other instruments until the tone was joyous once again.
Andy remained on the stage through their song, and was carried off by a hefty clown with enormous biceps when it came to an end.
A dim blue light flashed in the room. Everyone on stage exited while a small man made taller with stilts climbed into the spotlight.
He called out, "On behalf of the Congress of Clowns, allow me to welcome the merry." The crowd erupted with cheers and laughter. "Tonight we celebrate the expansion of elation with exciting exploitation of performances of our proteges." Again the crowd cheered and the lights dimmed and then grew brighter, the stage changed again.
Behind the stage, Andy lay helpless and unconscious. A clown in a white lab coat with a red-dyed leather medical bag bent over Andy. Andy was injected with a comically long needle on the end of a syringe filled with black liquid. All color washed away from Andy's clothes and face. He was left with only black and white. Forceps were used to squeeze and pull Andy's tongue from his mouth. Scissors were used to sever the organ from his body. The same scissors were used to cut each finger off his hands. The blood that flowed from Andy's mouth and hands appeared black until it hit the floor beneath him where it took on a scarlet color.
The stilted clown walked backstage and hoped down from his perch. He looked at Andy on the floor. “Is the miming complete,” he asked the clown doctor?
The doctor nodded. The hulking clown who had carried Andy backstage picked his body up and removed him from the building.
ǑǑ
Andy woke in his bed looking down at the stumps of flesh at the ends of his wrists. He knew what had occurred but could not discern why. He had been mimed. When a clown speaks poorly about the order, they are mimed. Tongues, fingers and colors are removed.
Andy's door opened and Stanley searched all corners of the room before stepping through the threshold. “Are you alone?”
Andy nodded.
Stanley gingerly closed the door. He said, “I don't want to stay here very long, but I wanted to see how you were healing.”
Andy's face screwed up with a furrowed brow and instinctively he opened his mouth to respond with words. Only a gurgle was heard.
Stanley said, “I told you to stop talking about learning. Clowns become light through laughter.”
Andy shook his head in negation and closed his eyes.
“I know you think becoming enlightened is through drawing in knowledge. But do you see what happens when you don't do as they say?”
Andy's thoughts raced without a clear direction. He knew there was no way to convey what he was thinking with his friend and sat staring with wide eyes drawing in Stanley's words.
Is there a way to reverse this? Andy looked at his hands and knew once there is severance there was no recovery.
“There is a society of mimes.” Andy as well as every other clown knew this information. “They are going to care for you. Do what they say.”
Andy nodded and stood to embrace his friend. Stanley's color drained from his clothes and face as he was engaged in the hug. “I have to go before they know I'm here.”
ǑǑ
Andy was contacted by the mimes. In fact several of them moved into his home to help him acclimate to life without fingers and tongue. He got fitted with a pair of gloves containing prosthetic digits and learned how to manipulate movement with the muscles of his wrists. Communication was difficult as it was done completely with pantomime and gestures.
Playing the calliope was no longer an option for employment or joy. Andy spent many days in the library reading. He spent many more days in the park working for tips in his top hat.
Still, though the miming set forth difficult obstacles to overcome, Andy was certain that the key to becoming light with euphoria was through knowledge, not through the fast and easy laughter vacant of substance promoted by the clowns.
Andy turned the lid of a jar counter-clockwise and pushed his fingers into the contents. While smearing white goop as a foundation, Andy's mouth curled up in a smile. His eyes twinkled thinking about the music he would play during the party at which he was to perform.
He worked for weeks on getting the music to encompass the rise and fall of action he felt told his story. He worked on learning every nuance of the instrument he played so that he could master his compositions instead of just belting out distracting background noise.
Andy dragged an oily purple body ink pencil over the white foundation exaggerating his features. He drew a smile around the perimeter of his lips, making them look swollen with joy and then filled in the shape with bright pink. Long eyelashes made from synthetic blue hair were glued onto his lids.
Finally, when his face was out of the jars and on to his skin, Andy wiped his hands with a terry cloth towel and blew on his palms. Glitter flew in the air around him and rained down, sticking into the crevices of the make-up.
Andy was a clown. Completely transformed from flesh and blood to only the shell of a human. Within, Andy was light. Andy started the transformation as a child and thrived on the performance. When he laughed at himself he felt buoyant; as if he was floating effortlessly through his day. When others laughed at him, he felt sublimely effervescent; as if he was just a puff of air drifting on the rays of sunlight in unclouded energy.
But when he performed with knowledge, he felt invisible and invincible. He felt as if he was a part of the very vapor being drawn in and out of his fellow man nourishing their bodies with the necessity of life.
Andy walked bare-footed from his house to a generator. He pulled a cord to engage the motor and then turned a spigot to fill an attached drum with water. The generator heated the water, which was then pumped into pipes that run into the house. When Andy returned to his home and walked into his music room, it was substantially warmer. Andy sat at his calliope and as he pressed the keys, release valves opened to send music and steam billowing into the air. Andy practiced his songs for hours, the whole time becoming brighter with every note.
A squeaky car horn beeped from the curb. Andy craned his neck to look through the window and assure it was the car he was expecting. He closed the valves on the calliope and walked outside to switch off the generator controlling the steam pump.
Another squeaky beep reminded Andy that a car waited for him.
Andy sauntered to the curb and opened the car door, leaned in and asked, “Should I get in the back?”
“No, you're last to pick up.”
Andy turned his head and saw the back was full of glitter he settled into the seat and hummed the song he had been playing.
“You ever notice how you glow after you learn something new,” Andy asked and then continued humming his song?
The driver turned to Andy and laughed. “The only light I know comes from joy.”
Andy looked behind him again and saw the glitter swirl in the back. Andy sighed and felt the cool air on his face.
The car slid into a parking space and the driver turned the key to stop the engine. He turned to Andy and said, “Just laugh tonight. Stop talking about learning.”
Andy slapped his hands together and exclaimed, "Right-Oh!" He hopped from his seat and held the door open for other clowns to emerge from the vehicle.
Eight, Nine, Ten. Andy held the door as the glitter stirred to assemble into full-sized people who then climbed from the automobile. Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen. Andy stretched his neck to see the volume of glitter remaining. Twenty four, twenty five, twenty six. “That's it,” Andy called into the car before slamming the door closed?
The line of clowns walked single file into a white building labeled only with the word Congress.
Inside there were even more clowns and the air was raucous with laughter.
Andy breathed in the sweet aroma rising from the refreshment table. He gorged on pastries and sugared creams until his stomach and mouth were full of treats. Andy collapsed in a molded plastic chair in an intoxicated stupor, his face dressed with a blissful grin.
An obese clown with a polka dotted dress pushed her way through the rows of chairs shoving plastic cups of syrupy fruit flavored drink into the hands of everyone in attendance. Andy drank his portion in one gulp and held out his hand for more.
The lights dimmed and a spotlight rose on a performance stage. The evening's host spoke in alliterative phrases causing cheers and applause in the crowd.
Finally, the clowns were to split into small groups to finalize plans for their performances during the Burgeon Breaking – the ceremony in which the young clowns show their talents under the tutelage of those seasoned.
Andy joined up with other musicians.
An accordion player named Stanley slapped Andy on the shoulder. As glitter floated from the impact and settled back onto Andy's suspender strap, Stanley said, “I see you laughing!”
“It's a joyous night!”
“Huzzah,” Stanley exclaimed! “Readying the young ones for performance!”
Stanley spoke of the ceremony when the clowns would next gather. Tonight was a night to finalize scheduling. Each clown involved in the show had been charged with inspiring children to accept the tenets of clowning as principles of living in joy. Stanley and Andy were charged with children displaying musical talent and helped them to write a piece that will be the crescendo to the Burgeon Breaking.
Andy built a a pedal-powered calliope for the occasion. He composed a song specifically to show the rise of happiness culminating in a fast melody with the children running to the stage from all directions displaying their talents until the energy emitted from the music itself bursts into glitter and pours onto the audience!
ǑǑ
The night of the ceremony, Andy climbed on his rolling cart which was set in motion by peddling a crankset similar to a bicycle. Pipes along the top of the cart emitted an aromatic fog making the room hazy. Bright white light had been dimmed and now shifted from red, to orange, to yellow, and then back to red again cycling through the three colors casting shadows across the faces of the audience.
Andy rode in circles on the stage as the sound from the machine grew louder and louder. From the back of the room, through the seated clowns, ran costumed children screeching with voices that cut through the jingling and jangling of the calliope. The children climbed onto the stage and pulled Andy from the calliope to the floor. The music ceased and the steam from the instrument trickled out until there was nothing left, absent of the player.
The clown children punched and kicked until Andy wasn't moving. A child clown pulled his arm perpendicular to his body and then let it fall limp. A second child did the same to his other arm. Over and over again, there were indications that he was unable to move himself including the final test of his consciousness. The smallest clown child stood at Andy's head and smacked his face to the left and right, making it oscillate with both movements but not regaining stability. The children moved to the front of the stage, held hands and bowed their bodies at the waist. The silence left and drums began thumping softly and then louder with each bow. The audience remained silent.
The drums beat louder and louder through speakers on the ceiling making the audience feel as though they were being pushed together tighter with every beat until a crescendo occurred and the report of the final drumbeat was as loud as a cannon, which coincided with the lights being extinguished and leaving the room in darkness.
Finally, Stanley broke the silence. He walked onto the stage with his accordion wailing. He was joined by other clowns who played other instruments until the tone was joyous once again.
Andy remained on the stage through their song, and was carried off by a hefty clown with enormous biceps when it came to an end.
A dim blue light flashed in the room. Everyone on stage exited while a small man made taller with stilts climbed into the spotlight.
He called out, "On behalf of the Congress of Clowns, allow me to welcome the merry." The crowd erupted with cheers and laughter. "Tonight we celebrate the expansion of elation with exciting exploitation of performances of our proteges." Again the crowd cheered and the lights dimmed and then grew brighter, the stage changed again.
Behind the stage, Andy lay helpless and unconscious. A clown in a white lab coat with a red-dyed leather medical bag bent over Andy. Andy was injected with a comically long needle on the end of a syringe filled with black liquid. All color washed away from Andy's clothes and face. He was left with only black and white. Forceps were used to squeeze and pull Andy's tongue from his mouth. Scissors were used to sever the organ from his body. The same scissors were used to cut each finger off his hands. The blood that flowed from Andy's mouth and hands appeared black until it hit the floor beneath him where it took on a scarlet color.
The stilted clown walked backstage and hoped down from his perch. He looked at Andy on the floor. “Is the miming complete,” he asked the clown doctor?
The doctor nodded. The hulking clown who had carried Andy backstage picked his body up and removed him from the building.
ǑǑ
Andy woke in his bed looking down at the stumps of flesh at the ends of his wrists. He knew what had occurred but could not discern why. He had been mimed. When a clown speaks poorly about the order, they are mimed. Tongues, fingers and colors are removed.
Andy's door opened and Stanley searched all corners of the room before stepping through the threshold. “Are you alone?”
Andy nodded.
Stanley gingerly closed the door. He said, “I don't want to stay here very long, but I wanted to see how you were healing.”
Andy's face screwed up with a furrowed brow and instinctively he opened his mouth to respond with words. Only a gurgle was heard.
Stanley said, “I told you to stop talking about learning. Clowns become light through laughter.”
Andy shook his head in negation and closed his eyes.
“I know you think becoming enlightened is through drawing in knowledge. But do you see what happens when you don't do as they say?”
Andy's thoughts raced without a clear direction. He knew there was no way to convey what he was thinking with his friend and sat staring with wide eyes drawing in Stanley's words.
Is there a way to reverse this? Andy looked at his hands and knew once there is severance there was no recovery.
“There is a society of mimes.” Andy as well as every other clown knew this information. “They are going to care for you. Do what they say.”
Andy nodded and stood to embrace his friend. Stanley's color drained from his clothes and face as he was engaged in the hug. “I have to go before they know I'm here.”
ǑǑ
Andy was contacted by the mimes. In fact several of them moved into his home to help him acclimate to life without fingers and tongue. He got fitted with a pair of gloves containing prosthetic digits and learned how to manipulate movement with the muscles of his wrists. Communication was difficult as it was done completely with pantomime and gestures.
Playing the calliope was no longer an option for employment or joy. Andy spent many days in the library reading. He spent many more days in the park working for tips in his top hat.
Still, though the miming set forth difficult obstacles to overcome, Andy was certain that the key to becoming light with euphoria was through knowledge, not through the fast and easy laughter vacant of substance promoted by the clowns.
