Courting the Clown

Romantic comedy. When single-father Nick discovers a hypothermic clown named Sylvie hiding out in the snow from the children she is supposed to entertain, he is intrigued. And when his little daughter, still grieving her mother, takes an interest in the clown, Sylvie's fate is sealed… But does Nick only want her for his daughter's sake?

“If you’re looking for purgatory, it’s that way.”

The cynical female voice drifted to him out of nowhere. Nick halted just inside the gate and looked around the small front yard, white with snow, littered with hundreds of little footsteps. He saw no-one. A huge plastic Santa was on his belly by the door, a plastic Rudolph on the other side, several trees glowed with fairy lights in the afternoon dusk, and a Christmas wreath was hung on the front door.

But none of the decorations seemed to be a talking road-sign to the afterlife.

“Excuse me?” he said to thin air, and felt Lana’s mittened hand creep into his own. He looked down at his daughter, squeezed her small hand and smiled. She didn’t often initiate contact these days. Every time was precious.

Even when caused by fear of a disembodied voice.

“Purgatory. That way.”

A movement alerted him to where the voice was coming from and Lana’s small gasp told him she had seen it too.

It wasn’t surprising that he hadn’t noticed her. Wearing a white and red clown’s costume complete with orange polka dots, a wig, a red plastic nose and tons of white make-up, she was well camouflaged in the afternoon dusk, sitting flat-legged in the snow in front of the redbrick house. She was pointing around the side of the house, her arm slanting down as if she was too tired to even gesture, her head back against the wall and her words punctuated by tiny clouds of warm air emerging from her mouth. “I assume you’re here to pick up one of the fallen angels. They’re in the backyard. Working on a way to start World War III using snowballs. I wouldn’t be surprised if they succeeded, too. They’ve got a fearsome little lady general.”

Nick suppressed a grin. As the single father of two, he thought her description of a crowd of five-year-olds as fallen angels was pretty apt.

And he had a feeling he might know the little lady general.