Swishbone, by Stephen Kerr

Image courtesy of © lighthouse – Fotolia.com

It has been well known for several years now that a man in a clown costume, flanked by two feral gibbering adolescents in dirty rags, with limbs twice the length they ought to be, held on chains held by the gloved hands of the clown, dances through a multitude of small towns in Georgia and Alabama, on their side streets and their playgrounds, their parking lots and their back yards.

In each of these towns, the vision decked in off white face paint, a dirty pink spherical nose, green flickering bloodshot eyes, blue and green and red flapping material, electric blue tufts of hair, enters with these two disfigured figures, lets them smell the warm Southern night air, then lets them off their leashes, wherein they scuttle off into the night – over fences, clinging to drain pipes as they scramble up walls, through open front doors.

At the end of each night, two adolescents with limbs twice the size they ought to be sheepishly crawl back like beaten dogs, and sit with their heads facing the dry grass as the clown places the collars back around their necks. He throws back his head and chuckles, then off he goes, before the dawn can touch him.

Each of these nights in which the clown comes to town, two young teenagers will vanish from their rooms, from their walks home, from their back yards, and each of these nights two stretched and inexplicable skeletons will be found in shallow graves in the Georgia or Alabama soil. They’re never identified.

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BIO: Stephen Kerr is an early 20’s grave riser from Scotland with a passion for urban legend and the bizarre. Twitter: https://twitter.com/Phil_N_Stine.

Shy Heahrug, by Paulo Brito

Image courtesy of © jorgophotography – Fotolia.com

Shy Heahrug, the tallest clown midget on Earth, usually wanders around the Bridge City circus with a hand stuck in his pocket to cuddle his precious red camera, and dangling from the right ear he has a rose, from which he surgically removed petals with a gluttonous eating satisfaction. Thus, Shy Heshrug could, at first glance, be labeled as a weirdo; at a second look, we must conclude that he could have suffered from a head blow; to the third blink, nothing can be noticed – he will take a picture and the curious will be blinded by the camera flash.

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BIO: Paulo Brito, he lives in Barcelos, Portugal. He writes since the age of 15 poetry and short stories as a matter of mental hygiene. Loves reading Rhys Hughes and David Soares. His influences are immense, because he was has always been a drinker of books.

BIO:  Paulo Brito, vive em Barcelos, Portugal. Ele escreve desde os 15 anos poesia e histórias curtas por uma questão de higiene mental.