The last smile in town had been turned upside down through an increasingly simple operation called a frownectomy performed in old photo booths.
There is no need for clowns when everyone is a clown.
The circus kept going, but the clowns sat on the bleachers and watched the pink poodles reenact civil war battles. Everyone liked the poodles’ glitter guns.
Sometimes the clowns stood on their heads and smiled because everyone looked sad. They could never stay that way long, because they had grown too fat from eating hallucinogenic cotton candy and would topple over.
In a dream the clowns all turned into blue balloons and popped in a purple sky and their tears squirted out of yellow orchids worn by nuns.
In real life the clowns all cashed in their 401ks and traded in their little car for a black Hybrid Escalade with vibrating rainbow hubcaps.
And then they sped away.
-- Jill Grunewald
Jill Grunewald is a second-year MFA student at Hamline University. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota with her husband and two dogs.