Long Term Storage
Uncle Tommy referred to it as his 'box of clowns'. It was actually a padlocked shipping container in his yard, with holes punched in the sides for air.
We let them out – not because we felt sorry for them, but because we wanted to watch them run about. They'd been inside for a while, so moved slowly. Coming out of the dark container, the clowns covered their eyes against the light, tottering in big shoes. They reminded us of new-born calves. My uncle laughed as the farm hands rounded them up once more.
Background
This story was previously published in Dan Sumption’s zine jam, Krill. For my entry I produced an entire short-story collection containing 12 pieces in two A5 pages, which I called Fishscale after the Ghostface Killah album (obviously). PDF copies of Krill are available on itch.io for £1.
I like this story. It’s everything I want from the things I write – a simple set-up, but one that provokes questions. There’s an entire world implied, one where a man keeps imprisoned clowns, and everyone seems to be all right with that. The fact that it’s clowns in the container and they are explicitly compared to farm animals raises other questions. What I love most about tiny stories like this one is that you can do so much in fewer than a hundred words.
Substack
I’ve enjoyed sending out a regular story on Substack, but I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with the company’s policies. They allow extreme-right views to be monetised and claim this as a free-speech issue, while censoring other topics, including some sexual content and promotion of eating disorders. Ultimately, their commitment to free-speech seems to mainly benefit Nazis. Some of the background is here, and there is a good summary on the latest issue of Garbage Day.
Which is to say - I am looking into moving this email to a new provider, but it will probably be a week or two before I do so.