The Prizes Were Scarier Than the Clowns

A honk came from behind me as I walked down the street to go to the carnival that was in town. I turned around to find an old decrepit clown on a tricycle smiling at me. His teeth were filed down to be all pointy, and his clown make-up was smudged and smeared, giving his innocent red grin a ghastly joker like smile. His eyes held no happiness, except in the enjoyment of trying to scare me, and the other kids that were around. He let out a dry, hacked laugh and cycled around me, honking his old gold horn that had long since lost its sound, and amusement.

“Get lost you stupid clown.” I hissed at him, not enjoying his company in the least.

He honked at me again and ran over my toe. That was it, final straw. I kicked his tricycle, sending him flying. He fell to the ground and I snatched his horn before walking away.

“Stupid clown, not even funny…” I mumbled as I felt the rusting metal horn in my hands.

I headed through the iron gates that contained the park and the screaming kids. They ran around with cotton candy sticks that had bugs lodges in the strings of sugar, and lollipops shaped like body parts. A dog suddenly ran through and stole a girls arm shaped lollipop and ran of with it. The girl began to cry and I said to her,

“That’s life kid.” Before continuing on.

The adults that came to the carnival were either old clowns, balloon men that refused to make anything but a snakes, and a random sick looking man that screamed ‘winning!’ at me before jumping away. I didn’t want to stay here long, and began just quickly looking around. I spotted a row of games that involved real guns, and throwing knifes at a dummy. I paid a dollar to try the knife throwing and missed the first shot. The second time I pictured my mothers face and WHAM! The knife went right into the dummies face. The fat, limping, one-eyed, bald man that was running the game handed me a box of Glad trash bags, oh the irony…

“What kind of prize is this?” I asked him.

“My kind of prize.” He laughed, his large belly bouncing as he did.

“It sucks.”

“You suck!” He snapped.

I went to throw the box at his head, when I realized I might actually need them. “Next time old man, try getting a prize that isn’t from a grocery store.”

Then I walked away to ride the tilt-a-whirl; my trash bags and me were going to ride till we puked.