Pagliacci Noir

by Marek Z. Turner

‘Am I a joke to you?’

Naked, I stared at the clown, who was aiming a revolver at me. Was there a right answer?

‘I bet you both had a good laugh at me,’ he continued as tears stained his grease-painted face. The gun quivered in his white-gloved hand. The harsh stench of whisky hit me with every word. It mingled with the stale sweat of the room and made my nose twitch.

‘Canio, don’t,’ said Nedda, his wife, as she tugged the bedsheets up to cover her breasts. ‘I love him.’ Her faint words possessed enough strength to fill me with confidence.

‘She’s with me now,’ I said, keeping my voice steady. ‘You should leave. Sleep it off.’

His face distorted as he laughed.

Nedda reached for my hand beneath the linen. She squeezed it. ‘Please, Canio, just go.’

‘Not without you.’

‘She stays here,’ I said.

The report echoed in my head while the bullet smashed through Nedda’s skull.

Her body and blood covered the sheets.

A veil of red covered my eyes.

Canio tossed the gun to me. I caught it on instinct. As I felt its warm steel in my fingers, electricity shot through my body. My muscles tightened. I swung the revolver at him and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Mouth open, I gawked at the impotent weapon in my hand as a siren wailed in the distance.

Canio grinned from ear-to-ear.

‘The comedy is finished.’