The Clown.

And then there were none.

The first to go was the recalcitrant youth. Adventure was his element and even the infinite waters of the sea could not contain his thirst for rarer shores. In no harbour did he find anchor, his gaze perpetually cast upon the next wave. He lived on the edge of oblivion and more often then not, taunted existence to throw him out. But just like the way moths take to flame and death, I punished myself in his inferno, and the pilgrim sang Prometheus’s song.

Second in line was the insignificant man-of-the-street, with his bowler hat of insecurities and pockets full of justified paranoia. His life was an oxymoron, his past, present and future showed the same reflection in the mirror. Between being and un-being he trod on a precipice. He was the man in the office, the man in the flat, the man at the voting box, the man hiding behind Big Brother. His end was exactly like his entrance, no one saw him go, no one saw him coming. No one saw him except me, and I quickly ushered him into death before life blacked him out.

Then there was the politician. He swept me off my feet with argument, and made all of life’s grievances sensible. I joined his campaign, and held his banner high. Together we marched down the long steps of our ivory tower and into the legions of Diaspora. We marched as comrades until the riot police came and vanquished our souls with tear gas and legislation.

Fourth was the prisoner, who held me thrall with his predicament. With him I felt the first stirrings of motherhood, and so I learnt that to be female was to be vulnerable to the weaknesses of men. Many were the nights where I cleaned the grime from his fingernails and soothed him to sleep in the godforsaken cell. Moonlight was only our company, and each other’s breathing our sole distraction. When he grew stronger, he broke the bars of his entrapment and walked free, and grief took me as his form joined the darkness and slipped away.

The fifth and dearest was the lover, the man who came to me in the night and made me belong. His words stoked fires, and all of life was ablaze in his presence. I bathed in his light and power, and felt eternity within grasp. But arrogance took him, and he was finally consumed by his own radiance, leaving me to weep Daedalus’ tears.

I knew them, if only like how each blind man knew the elephant. If only like how we all know and believe in the mysterious Mr Quinn.

The man who stands before me now is familiar, but stranger this familiarity makes him than strangeness. I trace the tousled criss-cross edges of his hair, inching my finger between the rough curls before lowering slowly to the face. Down my finger skims, leaving a faint line across the thickened brows and painted nose, to the obscenity of the plum red lips that instinctively tease themselves into a pout. I rub the soft flesh of my palm against those lips, feeling the colour rub off onto my skin, soaking in, initiating recognition. The contact singes my nerves, but I push on as the lips start to surface an earthly brown.

The face cracks, and peels, into a warm grin.

Dear god, I know you.