Speechless in Laughter

Jenny has written about clowns again. We all try not to sigh as she tries to describe white face paint and a red nose in some new profound arrangement of words. Today they are like a porcelain urn and a roma tomato.

Every time Jenny’s story is up for workshop we know we are about to meet some clowns. They might be serial killers in a horror piece or misunderstood social oddities who turn to clowning to find joy, but without fail they will be clowns.

We listen politely and the instructor leans back in his seat, a change in his usual attentive posture. It's the second to last week of the semester and it is a lot to ask for us to really focus on a fourth clown story. The first three had been subpar at best and none of us had high expectations for this latest invention.

“Timmy’s mother didn’t fully understand the feelings she was experiencing,” Jenny reads. “But she was certain of one thing, she was in love with this clown she had hired for her three year old son’s birthday.”

We cringe, some outwardly, some with their souls, but Jenny is too absorbed with reciting her latest masterpiece, she doesn't notice. A romance, we should have seen that coming.

“She pulled Mr. Giggles into the laundry room and knotted her fingers in his rainbow colored curly wig,” Jenny says in a breathy voice.

We grit our teeth through all the graphic details and romantic cliches Jenny uses to weave her clown love story. It may actually be more disturbing than the time she wrote about the homeless clown that wore his dead grandmother's wig.

“Against her better judgement, Louise had fallen head over heels for this galumphing fool in oversized shoes,” Jenny continues. “She felt such elation at the sight of his sunflower bowtie she could not bear the idea of him leaving her.”

Maybe if this would have been a comedy, it would have actually had potential. Spun properly the whole idea of the narrative could be wonderfully humorous. Jenny’s is not making any jokes though and any escaping laughter from one of us would probably prompt her to tears like it had last time. We had to cut the workshop short because she’d fallen to the floor and collapsed in an inconsolable heap of sobs and snot.

“After the wedding, Timmy took Mr. Giggles by the hand. ‘Daddy’ he said with a smile as Mr. Giggles placed a round rubber nose on the little boy's face,” Jenny concludes.

We manage not to give a collective gag and contain our excitement that the torturous reading has ended. After experiencing a brief moment of relief, there comes the realization that we must sensitively provide comments on such a bad story. If we aren’t delicate we could send her over the edge. And when Jenny goes over the edge it's more frightening than the clown that hid under children’s beds in her first story.

We make ambiguous comments about her use of descriptive detail and her establishment of setting. Not saying anything untrue, but leaving quite a lot unsaid. The instructor nods his head in agreement and does not offer any additional insight. He looks drained from the whole traumatic event. “Thank you Jenny, that was delightful as always,” he lies.

Kindly upgrade to a paid subscription to support my writings. Stay tuned for shocking untold secrets of well-known personalities!