The Case of Clowns and Countesses
Transcript provided to Superior Court
EVIDENCE Case No. 4371
Description: Remains of Letter
Place Found: Bottom of Trunk, Basement of Residence
Date and Time of Recovery:
Recovered By: Lieutenant Arrav Ambis
…
Dear Toyla and Penelope-
Creaking resonates through the soft fur and wooden joints. Sunlight pierces the wonderful magic of the chest of dragons and Russian princesses once more. The old hands of the husband and wife clumsily discard the Smoking Beggar Clown and the Fiery Countess, searching through the debris of painted smiles and eager glass eyes for the Silly Elephont and Tired Tigre. As their search turns briefly frantic, the embrace of the Clown and Countess becomes tighter as limbs, costumes, and strings intertwine. Beyond a lovers embrace, they sink into friends and coworkers. The sudden darkness heralds the successful discovery of the Silly Elephont and the Tired Tigre as well as the beginning of the Street Circuses’ Act III.
The Clown-Countess hybrid came to an unfortunate rest. A lesser man than the Clown would find their back broken by being wrapped around a mechanical monkey with cymbals, resting on top of his love. However, the Clown’s painted smile seemed truer as if he was entertained by being able to listen to his own foot and perchance scratch his nose with a toe rather than a finger.
With a laugh my legs are going numb the Clown whispers into the face of his beloved Countess. Her painted cheeks seemed less than pleased. Every time they reenter this box, the same joke exits the Clown’s mouth. Her response as always well then, move them uttered into the hair’s length separating their face. The practiced response of the Clown I can’t.
Blinded by her hapless lover’s hat, the Countess is annoyed that her already darkened view of the travelers case being closed is reduced further by the costume of an Idiot. She demands can you see anything? more for comfort than an accurate description of the familiar surroundings.
no. The Clown will not satisfy his Harlot’s demands. For nearly forty years, always on the verge of being granted a kiss, his lips are torn from hers with the strings of fate. Always so close to expressing his love in the most physical and intimate act, always denied by the muses. They have almost kissed thousands of times. Exposing love and loss in a non-native language, they each could only guess at their words and roles with the response of children’s eyes. Built in Britain, it was the Countess who pleaded with the Clown to come see the world, to take his strings and cross the channel. From that tiny shop, they crossed the channel under the arms of two lovers. For forty years, they performed in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. In the shadow of a language unknown. The Clown’s smile blurs ironic I can’t believe you talked me into this.
leave, if you want without hesitation. She would not be blamed for his freedom, his exploration, his strings. Together they came. The Clown with the struggling actress, the Countess with the eager writer.
The case opens again. Light blinds all of the tiny creatures. Hurried hands remove the Overstuffed Ring Leader while depositing meters of red fabric on the top of the case. Act IV has begun. Soon, soon Act V will be here and the two will be destined to almost kiss, to almost love once more. Darkness again.
do you think they’ll find us? A reasonable question. Age has slowed the writer’s words and the actresses’ gestures. The blur of impressionism and the musk of old closets replaced the sharp vision and smell of summer’s rain the two artist’s commanded. Slowly, they faded with their hopes into bodies of memories. Easily looking in, but strained to see out, their hands often missed their targets in the chest. Grabbing a monkey where the Beggar should be. I don’t know. Do you?
The Clown’s smile turns sardonic I’m not sure I really care. Who needs facsimile reproductions of humor? Or paradise? Probably better without us, anyway. A momentary gaze is shared between the Beggar and the Beauty. Move your elbow. A test.
The Countess, with anger filling her eyes you move yours. A test always failed. So long ago, they were on stage, dancing with strings. One was life. One was responsibility. One was art. One was children. They never begrudged their strings. Those invisible chains connected them, made them dance. Without their restraints, they would not have movement, connection, anticipation, an almost kiss. They would have remained a rag doll in a shop outside in the rats’ nest that is London.
That shop. Those days. So many invisible strings.
do you remember what you thought when you first met me? The Clown would turn his face if he had enough room to do so. He was ashamed of the question. He was ashamed of the answer that would come.
The Countess, preoccupied with thoughts of dancing and breathing what kind of question is that? is disturbed at the notion. They have been through this discussion many times, the Clown Does it matter? I asked it always remembers the days past. Always calling for loves’ response. The Countess and that means I have to answer? always put the past behind, a blurry haze of memory. She only had eyes to the future, until the future failed her. Perhaps the Clown’s insecurity don’t be rude stemmed from the thousands of almost kisses performed in public seeping into the Countess’s memory of the fog I don’t know. When did we first meet?
With tepid horror, both fake and real I’m not going to tell you if you don’t remember the Clown realizes she has forgot. That she is preoccupied with the present. She is preoccupied. With finding happiness where she can then I can’t answer your question.
The Beggar’s smile is now hollow you already answered my question as he remembers unshared memories of happiness. How cruel is fate, all the forgotten almost kisses. The Countess oh? may not even have noticed. The events may have past as simply as a morning’s breakfast. Enjoyable, but not distinctly memorably. His love is equivalent to pancakes, a good sight, well, you can’t have been that impressed but easily overlooked. I didn’t even register.
For the first time, the Clown feels he has the Countess’ attention. Maybe the first time in years. Maybe the first time in a lifetime. maybe I didn’t like you. The horrible beauty of the statement. Maybe he has her love, but maybe not her appreciation. Maybe those perfect lips lie. maybe I just don’t want to say.
But he has her emotion. The Beggar has at least antipathy instead of apathy. He has stolen her attention. Maybe not in love, but he will settle for disgusted disappointment.
And maybe the sounds of children’s laughter outside of the box have become cries. Maybe the shouting of the old Actress have exited fiction. Maybe the repeated pounding on the box is not a hasty search but a losing struggle.
The Clown becomes all smiles not being remembered is worse. It’s like being caught amongst your supporting cast, draped around a cymballed monkey, being squished by a dolphin with a mariachi hat. A random pancake in a waffle long ago consumed. it’s like never being at all.
Sunlight scorches the statement as the lid is flung open. The beauty the Clown beholds is mirrored by the disgust the Countess betrays that’s your opinion.
and I’m damn well entitled to it.
Loud words in foreign tongues are exchanged far overhead. A wail, a thud, and a small ember descends the stretch of eons and feet. A wrapped death stick enters the box’s theater, being locked in with the darkness and actors with the close of the lid, majestically sinking to the bottom of the box. The route the cigarette meandered from the shady figure to the base was traced with breathing embers and licking flames. The prelude to fire.
The Clown seizes the opportunity and considers all those years ago, the craftsman were wise to embed in his hand not a ring, but a cigarette. And in his chest, not a heart but a pack. can you reach my cigarettes?
With hesitation, the Countess considers where her lover’s heart should be yeah she begins to see the orange glow in this Idiot’s face and realizes the truth of their entangled situation but not the lighter.
Created with cigarettes typical and finally given fire, still unable to smoke. The heat passed close to one of the Clown’s strings. The Countess watched as a small flame lapped at the restraint, one moment it was there, the next a hazy memory hanging in the darkness. The Beggar’s head is momentarily free, then crashes, resting directly on top of hers. Eyes peering over each other’s cheeks into the dancing darkness. Lips painfully close to touching. The Clown seizes his opportunity gimme one anyway.
The Countess’s reply I can’t see your mouth is empty of emotion. Neither betraying her terror or pain.
With great sadness, the Clown realizes the fates have suspended them in the act of almost kissing in glowing dark. Maybe the Countess still thought they were talking of cigarettes? it’s in the middle of my face.
A softness of love well, that is typical of a laughter to a shared joke resonated in her voice. A moment, better than a kiss. She still held him not because they were entangled. She held him because they were free.
In his mind, all kisses were finally complete thanks.
Behind the Clown, near the top of the chest, a roar emanated as the Countess watched the Fading Sun used in Act I catch light, where art imitates reality to the painful degree. A crackling laugh emerges from the perfect imitation
Unable to see the final act, the Beggar’s fear rose did you hear that?
shhhhh. It feels as if the Countess is holding the Clown tighter quiet.
The New Sun, the True Sun began to consume more. Breathing outward, Mercury was unable to run, Venus’ beauty fell, the entire Earth was destroyed, and Mars waged no war. The Polar Explorers were finally warmed while the Russian dancers were able to move briefly free as their strings evaporated. The Penguins remained confused.
A wail. Loud and distant. Sirens. Mixing with the beauty of a woman’s heartbreak. Sirens. In the distance.
Hope, horrible hope enters the Clown’s mind I think they’re going to find us. Maybe he isn’t done living? maybe I’m frightened after all.
The glowing embers are falling, showering stars being reflected in hundreds of glass eyes. One briefly flirts with the Countess’ hair of being forgotten? before extinguishing. The Clown’s heart leapt and subsided, the horror vision being removed. I never said that.
The Countess sees an ember land gingerly on the Clown’s hand, the one strung up high behind his shoulder, caressing the now singed dolphin and nearly touching the orange glowing cymbal. It breathes for a moment on the cigarette never said what? and finally catches.
The Beggar feels the sudden heat, the sudden urgency I never said I’d mind being forgotten. Everybody gets forgotten sooner or later. His smile is true. But you have to be remembered first, and that’s what matters.
There is a chance, the sirens are deafening. Hundreds of confused voices. Children. If they can wait. If the Clown can prevent his hand’s fall. The Countess move your elbow commands.
The Clown almost laughs at why? the suggestion to defy the inevitable. With resolution, freedom is obtained, the inspired hand with the forgotten cigarette falls from massaging the dolphin to rest on the Beggar’s back.
With a brief choke and a slight cry, the Countess wishes to forget that arm, that hand, that cigarette so I forget the pressure of it on my chest and remember how her love’s other arm feels, how his other indentations and floppy hat caress her so I’ll be surprised by the pinch when you squirm and just be free with me and move it back.
The Clown, never getting stage fright, begins to sweat. The heat. Something more wrong than expected. His heart, finally, catches flame. I can almost reach the lighter.
The Countess emits a brief cry. The Clown is no longer a Beggar, he is alighted with the Sun. She whispers after him I still don’t think you should smoke in here.
so you keep saying h . . . . . . a Clown's choke . . . . . . smoke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . flickering dancers on the. . . . . . . . . . floor . . . . . . maniacal laughter. . . . . . . . . . . . of wood's freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . taste of bark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . burning smiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .lips . . . . . blank . . . . . . . . . . . a Countess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . sharing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . life . . . . . heat . . . . dea . . . . fre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . th eyes ablaze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . s Smoking Beggar Clown and the Fiery Countess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . s.ared thought…at least the Silly Elephont . . . to say nothing of the Tigre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .orment of pain. Nothin………………my fault. Cigare…………o her lung cancer. I could do n . . . . . . help her. I had to watch my actress fade. My countess. I asked her before she slipp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . me? Her answer to my question, my loves, was “since the first time that we met.”
I am so sorry, for everything really, my dear Elephont and Tigre. I was just tired of being a failure. Tired of being unable to help her pain. Just tired.
Forgive me. Forgive my last play. Understand your strings before they are cut.
With all my love,
The Puppeteer X≡
*Transcribers note: The [. . .] indicate text obscured by either smoke or fire damage.