"We Are All Clowns"

By Bellamy Veil for The Town Crier

Paris, 11:47 PM. The Seine was gleaming in that way only the Seine can — silver and black at once, like mercury performing for the moon. I had no intention of finding clowns that evening. Truly, I didn’t. I was simply walking, as one does in Paris when one wants to feel cinematic and alone. But as fate or foolishness would have it — the clowns found me.

They always do.

Two of them this time. Striped and star-spangled, like escaped acrobats who’d been dipped in melancholy. They were standing under the Pont Neuf, twisting their limbs together in a choreography of discomfort. From afar, they looked like one person struggling with a reflection. Upon closer inspection — they were becoming conjoined.

Yes, conjoined! A performance, apparently. “The World’s First Voluntary Siamese Clowns,” a cardboard sign read. The crowd was small, mostly cigarette smoke and disbelief. But I watched — because how could I not? They wrapped their legs together, stitched invisible seams through the air, and whispered secrets through forced smiles. It was both grotesque and oddly touching — like watching two halves of the same wound trying to close themselves.

And then it happened.

As I turned to leave, they lunged — together, of course — their painted faces illuminated by the flicker of a streetlight. Their mouths moved in perfect sync. Their breath smelled faintly of roses and despair.

“We are all clowns,” they said.

And then they laughed — not the laugh of joy, but of knowing.

The rest of the night was silent, save for that echo. We are all clowns.
The phrase bounced off the river, the bridges, my skull. It followed me past cafés and lovers’ quarrels, past the scent of butter and smoke, past the dream of solitude.

Because perhaps they’re right. Perhaps we are all clowns — painted, performed, pretending. And perhaps I, Bellamy Veil, am simply the worst of them — a clown too proud to wear his own face paint.

Still, I can’t help but ask…
Why must everyone be a clown?
And worse — why do I keep finding them wherever I go?