The Pink Fabric Clown I first saw the pink fabric clown from where I was perched on a window sill in my hospital room, against the wishes of attending nurses and my mother, waving down 2 stories to my father, brother and grandmother. The pink fabric clown was held by my grandmother, her brilliant white hair shiny with Aqua Net as she stood in the hospital parking lot. In disbelief, my eyes traveled to the strange clown doll in her hand and to my brother who held a red fabric clown, twin to the pink in all other ways. Grandmother waved as she handed the pink fabric clown to my father, and he made his way upstairs to my room. I already hated the pink fabric clown, who was blameless but somehow became the scapegoat for my anger. At age seven, I had fallen victim to mononucleosis and the mumps, back before a mumps vaccine existed. The pediatrician had driven to our house where I lay on the couch sporting a fever of 105 degrees. He scooped me up and drove us to the hospital in his own car, mother holding me in the back seat. My brother got to ride in the front with the doctor. I was placed in a regular ward, as the pediatric beds were all occupied. I spent five days in that sterile hospital room forced to drink orange juice until I was covered in hives. After that, I drank only water. On day one, my beloved brown stuffed dog Po-Po was taken away, an unsuspecting casualty callously tossed into the incinerator. Stuffed dogs couldn’t be washed - germs, my mother explained as I grieved piteously into a pillow. I fell fitfully into sleep in the strange bed. I dreamed of brown dog’s sad demise while holding the pink fabric clown in a choke-hold, as if responsibility lay in the flat plastic face with painted eyes or the arms and legs of quilted fabric; and somewhere within my sleep I flung the innocent pink fabric clown to the cold tile floor. Julie A. Dickson
