MicroHorror

Chokes landed on his ass and honked his horn towards the stands. He didn’t manage so much as a titter from the cheap seats.

He couldn’t be bothered getting up from the sawdust. He rummaged in an oversized pocket and pulled out his smokes.

He sat and chugged, pausing only to scratch at the scabs that itched, burned and bled beneath the tri-colored wig.

He was done with the cigarette. He flicked it at Sammy the dead seal and clambered to his elongated feet. He tooted the horn absently and goose-stepped his way towards the concession stand.

Some flies did a quick taxi on the runway that was Bulk the elephant’s corpse and took off as Chokes lumbered by with his bleeding nose. Bits of him bled on and off and had done since a week last Monday. Chokes wiped at his nose. He didn’t mind it when his nose or his ears bled. It was when his eyes and anus wept crimson that he became unsettled.

He stuck to candy-floss. He wanted to save his three remaining teeth for his final meal. He wanted to make that one count. Chokes looked at all the corpses. Clowns, clowns everywhere but not a drop of laughter to be heard.

The ringmaster was a fornicating whoreson in life. In death he was just well dressed.

Chokes had raised the revolver during a rehearsal just after the incident. “Ooh, a little-widdle bomb, the one we’ve all been expecting does a kazzplat and the show stops? Fuck- no, not on my watch. Show Chokes how yer do the SmileyWooWoo!” Lead poisoning killed the ringmaster before the radiation did.

Chokes had offered an ultimatum. Perform or piss off. “What the world needs right now is entertainment.” He paused to spit out the blood that had run from his gums. “And what better entertainment is there than the Greatest Show on Earth!” Chokes did his best to rally the troupes but people were getting sick. He watched them leave. They were like dying rats, going to find a crawlspace to die in and stink it up.

The other clowns, though, when they moved to walk out, well, that just did it for Chokes. They were a brotherhood, his kin in laughter. He couldn’t just let them go. They were traitors to the pratfall. Chokes didn’t bother to line them up before he shot them too.

Now he was nearly alone, Gabriel had trumpeted his trumpet and the world had gone to shit. Alas, the need to perform was like a crack addiction in his veins. The Big Top his Broadway, the cheap seats his theater boxes.

All Chokes wanted to do was perform, to entertain, to be seen. He tried not to think of he Waybeck Theatre back in ‘98 when the production was cancelled before first night. He still felt a little bad about burning the place to the ground with everyone still inside. That was like shooting the dog for having fleas.

Chokes turned to the front row.

“Gonna do my act again. This time I want to hear some fuckin’ chortles. Are we on the same pageroo?” He looked at the Mummy, shivering with fright, the Daddy who was looking for a way to free his family and at the kids, those precious little poppets whose cheeks were red with tears. Chokes figured they really should try and grab all the fun they could before their kidneys dissolved completely and died.

Chokes started his act with a honk and decided to Hell with ‘em if they didn’t laugh, he had three good teeth left and the Mummy looked edible as long as he stayed north of the spleen.