Juniper's Ring | h.s.

- crowd pleaser

"There's nothing to hear. No one is outside. The circus is gone. You aren't a part of it anymore." I assure him, feeing terribly for his traumatic delusions. "Puddles, do you know where you are?"

He doesn't answer my question but instead continues to ramble on. He looks past me and I look back as well to see nothing but the dark shelves in the room.

"But there — don't you see — Squeaky, Chief, Giggles and Loony are all out there." He says, clearly seeing what he's describing.

He stands up out of his chair and I sit back a bit.

"Woah, please take a seat, Puddles. I don't want you to fall over." I try to coax him to take a seat again. He doesn't listen.

"They're lining up. They're dancing and the people, they love it. Giggles is pulling a laugh and Chief is hitting Loony over the head with his rubber mallet. Everything is as he wants it."

He's clearly hallucinating a routine behind me as if he's in the ring. His expression is certain but his eyes are searching for each moving part. As if he's watching from behind a curtain, he stares.

"And it's my turn to dance." He begins, raising one arm over his head and beginning to move in a fluid-like motion. His body winding and flowing like a ribbon through the air. It's strange but, I'm sure, he's done this exact dance a million times before.

I take out my clipboard and begin to make notes about his hallucinations, describing how he's reacting to what he thinks he's seeing.

"How do you feel right now?"

"I can't look sad." He says before pulling a very forced smile. "I have to smile for them. They want me to be happy. Clowns are meant to look happy."

"Puddles, you do understand that none of this is real, right now." I assure him as he continues dancing. "You're in a therapy room with me. There is no circus here."

"But you can feel it. If you are doing it right, you'll know."

I'm confused by his words but continue to listen.

"You'll feel it if you are doing it wrong." As he turns with his dance, I can see the slashes and welts on his back and shoulders through his wife-beater. I can imagine him feeling himself making the wrong moves means that he got whipped if he wasn't dancing as Juniper wanted him to. "I'm doing it right." He actually smiles more genuinely now, his lips peaking up shorter as a tear falls from his eye.

This poor man has been through so much. His entire view of reality has been corrupted. Harsh consequence could come from any step he makes. If he were to step on a crack, they'd literally break his back. He believes this to be normal. I'm afraid this state might be one he'll never emerge from.

"Puddles..." I try to bring him back to reality.

"And they applaud." He opens his arms wide, bowing slightly. "Then, we leave and I can cry."

"Who's the ring leader, Puddles? Who hurt you?"

His body relaxes but he still stares off into the distance as he stands beside the chair now.

"Ronny." His face falls.

"Ronny?"

"Yes. But we aren't allowed to call him that." He begins to fall back down to his chair.

"So, what do you call him?"

"You don't speak to Ronny. He speaks to you or you stay silent." He sits, slumping back over and looking back at the ground. "A good clown doesn't need to say anything to be funny."

"Did anyone else ever call Ronny by any other name?"

He looks up at me with a furrowed brow and leans closer.

"The animals can't speak, Miss." He looks at me as if I'm deranged.

"Were you the only human act, then?"

"The only one I saw." He shrugs.

I nod, taking note of that and Juniper's real name, Ronny. It's not enough to find out much more about the circus but it's better than what we had before.

"How did you get into the circus, Puddles?"

"Puddles was born in the circus."

"No, you weren't. You must have had a life before it. Can you remember it?"

"I was born to be a clown."