El Payaso: Part 5

The mime staggered, his hands going to his stomach. He veered first to the left, then to the right, staring at the imaginary blood on his hands. With a silent scream he slowly sunk to the floor, twitching a bit before growing still, his eyes still wide with shock and horror.

He then jumped back to his feet and charged us, shouting some sort of wordless mime battle cry. At which point the Dame shot him in the stomach and he did more or less the same thing he’d just done, save that he actually died.

I was in a corner with the Dame. I had a chair at the ready and was bludgeoning anyone who got to close, while she shot the occasional mime. All in all, it was a strangely quiet chaos.

The ninjas fought almost silently, save for the occasional yell. The mimes were true to form and made no sound, even as they took horrible injuries. The clowns were the noisiest, what with their beeping noses and air horns, but they too made relatively few sounds. If it weren’t for the fact that people were being strangled by their own intestines, you’d have thought it was a particularly strange bit of modern dance.

“All in all,” the Dame said, as she reloaded. “This isn’t too bad.”

A clown staggered by, a shuriken stuck in his forehead, but just when he managed to pull it out, a mime ran him through with an imaginary spear.

“Compared to what?” I asked, ducking as a balloon grenade exploded nearby. “We need to get out of here.”

“Why, it looks like the clowns are winning?”

It was true. The ninja reinforcements hit the mimes first and there was a great slaughter on both sides, ninja-tos and imaginary axes thudding into flesh, red blood mingling with the black and white. The clowns hit them both in a great charge of oversize shoes and dingy top hats.

“But look at the box.”

The box containing the gall bladder was imbedded in the wall from when a clown threw it through a ninja. It was starting to vibrate.

“Is that bad?”

“Relatively speaking: yes. If that gall bladder goes, it’ll take the whole building with it.”

“Then perhaps,” she said, as she took a shot at a ninja and missed. “We should leave?”

“I’d love to,” I said. “But there’s a small battle going on in front of us.”

“Then why don’t we use the exit door directly behind us?”

I turned and found that the exit door was indeed directly behind us. A spleen splattered against it as I looked. Thirty seconds later, we were well across the street. The Dame offered to get us both ice-cream, so I settled down to watch the battle.

“Thanks,” I said, accepting the double scoop of Sticky Chewy Chocolate. “The gall bladder’s going to go any minute now.”

“Probably,” she said, as she nibbled at her single scoop of strawberry.

We watched in silence for a minute, wincing at the occasionally extra savage blow or ducking when a mime cut loose with an imaginary submachine gun.

“You know,” said the Dame. “I feel like I should apologize.”

“For what? Shooting me in the leg?”

“No, for poisoning your ice-cream.”

I sighed. “Is this going to be a running theme with us?”

“Probably.”

And then I passed out.

I was home when I woke up. Nothing seemed out of place, save for the small card on my kitchen counter. It was white and had a picture of a harlequin on it. When I turned it upside down, it read ‘We’re not done yet.’

I sighed, tossed the card back onto the counter, and then went to see if any cartoons were on.

Cheers,
-Jason