spoon

You never intend for your room to get this bad. Whenever you get the motivation to clean the damn place (which is usually only when someone is meant to come visit), you always tell yourself that this is the last time. You swear that, from now on, you will actually keep it presentable, tidy, maybe not organised exactly but definitely not the mess that keeps accumulating. This resolve lasts for a few days, a week if you’re lucky, but it inevitably gets… out of hand. It’s not like it is ever dirty, per se, but the chaos creeps up on you: clothes on your chair that you can’t make yourself put away; dishes in the sink that you rinse but never actually wash; dust that accumulates in growing layers because to start cleaning it would mean having to clean it all and, really, there is no point. Sure, when someone is meant to come over, you have enough pride to force yourself to tidy, but when you’re alone? Well, you’re hardly someone worth keeping it presentable for.

What was that one Will Wood lyric? ‘I am quantum physics, my witness brings me to existence’? That pretty much sums up the cleanliness of your humble abode: it only exists when someone is there to perceive it.

Luckily, or unluckily, for you, no one ever really visits you anymore. Yeah, you have one friend in another city, but they have a job. They have a life. So, most of the time, you are alone within your four walls, sitting before a blank Word document and trying to stave off the hunger pains with handfuls of popcorn, doing your best not to acknowledge the state of your place of living.

Well, there is technically one other person you’ve been interacting with, if you can call the few meetings you’ve had that. You scared away some people getting physical with the red clown, sure, but for whatever reason it’s caused him to start appearing in your life more and more often. At first, you chalked it up to coincidence, saying you were only noticing him now because you had spoken and gotten acquainted, but even you know that’s a pretty poor explanation. Pierrot, as he calls himself, is not exactly subtle, the blood-red of his costume hardly helping him blend into a crowd. He’s the type of guy you take notice of.

Not that any of this matters. He’s a magnificent performer that comes to get a coffee sometimes; you’re just the worker that happens to take his orders, and make conversation with him, and is the recipient of his little gifts. Anything more is delusion on your part. Maybe you’re guilty of occasionally letting yourself fantasise about getting closer to the man, but you’re fairly certain he has someone of his own - how could he not with that tall build, sweet smile and alluring cadence of voice? Admiring him feels like scrolling through house listings you could never afford: so out of your reach that it doesn’t even make you feel bad.

And so, you brush off all your interactions with the man over the past month as chance. Your piss-poor self-esteem doesn’t even give you the option of thinking otherwise, even if you should have taken notice of how much the guy has been going out of his way to spend time with you. It’s for this reason that you could never see coming what is about to happen, but then again, it’s unlikely anyone could.

You get home from work tonight, exhausted and covered in sweat, your only wish being to shower and get in front of your laptop to rot. You were supposed to visit the circus today, given Pierrot’s insistence and the ticket he gave you yet again (for what reason, you have no idea - you hardly have anyone to promote the attraction to, which you told him the first time he insisted on giving you free entry), but you’re so exhausted it completely slips your mind. The first part of your plan is executed without any major difficulties, the discomfort of the warm day being enough of a motivator to stop you sitting in your work clothes all night. The rest does not go so smoothly.

The moment you step out of your shower, you see something that makes your heart stop and your stomach drop to the pit of your abdominal cavity.

There is someone on your balcony. Someone clad in red and black, eyes golden, grinning sheepishly as he moves to open the glass door. Someone uninvited.

See, a person with unimpaired cognitive functioning would have been terrified because the random stranger/acquaintance standing in their place of living is a pretty good sign they’re about to be kidnapped, or murdered, or trafficked, or God knows what else. You, though? No, that’s nowhere near your first concern.

Your immediate panic is caused by the fact that someone is here and your room is a mess.

As fast as your legs can carry you, you run across the small space, the clown’s smile falling at your distress. Imagine his surprise, then, when all you do is throw the curtains shut, blocking all but a sliver of space where you peer past the black-out fabric.

“What is the matter, my dear?” he asks, the angled-open window allowing you to hear every note of the confusion in his voice.

“Why are you here?” you immediately respond, moving your body to block his view every time he tries to peer past you. Now this worries him. He had come to make sure you were all right, seeing how you didn’t come to visit him today, but what on earth are you doing? What are you hiding? Is there another in your room? A partner, perhaps- no, he needn’t concern himself so. He has been following you long enough to know there is no such person, and even if there is, he can easily get rid of anyone foolish enough to believe they are the right one for you. That is not an issue, but he had hoped to finish courting you properly before showing the extent of his love, even if it has been slow progress-

You interrupt him as you continue rambling, panic clear in your voice. “I didn’t know you were coming- You can’t be here, my place is a mess!- I’m not prepared for guests-”

Oh, so that is the cause of your concern, Pierrot thinks to himself. How utterly adorable. As if such a thing would be enough to repel him. With newfound confidence, he turns the handle and pushes against the door only to meet resistance. That is odd - he knows this is a push door from his little visits to your flat these past weeks.

“Don’t come in-” you strain, the effort in your voice quickly giving away the fact that you are trying to block his entry with your body weight. Full of amusement at your little game, he pushes the door open with ease, stepping past your curtain and into your bedroom.

To say that you are embarrassed is an understatement. No, you are completely and utterly mortified as Pierrot enters the space, eyes fixed on you instead of the piles of clothing and dirty dishes and dusty surfaces. Your face heats uncomfortably with shame as he steps closer, and your survival instincts finally decide to rear their head.

This guy somehow got onto your balcony and inside your house. Someone you only just met a month ago. You should be screaming.

Why, then, do you still find the embarrassment stronger than the fear? How fucked do you have to be that you want you potential murderer to find your place spick and span? What the hell is wrong with you?

“Why are you so red, my dearest?” the clown asks, taking a tentative step closer, eyes wide as discs. “Is it for me?”

“What? I-” Before you can even think about what you’re doing, you rise and turn the clown so that he faces the corner of the room, as if he were a disobedient child you were punishing. “Don’t look. I’ll make the place presentable, then you can-” You catch the absurdity of your statement as you say it, hand rubbing your face as your shoulders drop. “Then you can what, kill me? What the fuck am I even doing?”

He, despite your behest, turns his head, smile gone completely from his face. “Kill you? Whyever would I do that?”

You blink. This isn’t happening, right? “Sell me, then.”

“I would never do that either,” he insists.

“Kidnap me?”

At that, his cheeks go pinker, lithe finger twirling a lock of pale hair around it. “Oh, I’d never.”

For a moment, you just stand there, completely befuddled. None of your thought patterns, maladaptive or other, give you any sort of indication as to what you are meant to do. He is evidently a threat, but also not. He is here against your will, but he is seeming to follow your command. He is someone you tell yourself you don’t know yet has occupied much of your free time and thoughts these past few weeks. Given that your brain has stopped functioning, it resorts to taking care of the one thing it does know how to do - getting rid of the shame.

“Ok, uh, you just stand there, I’ll tidy up and then we can talk, or something,” you stammer out, walking in a half-stupor to the pile of clothes on your chair. You wrap your arms around the bundle, attempting to lift it, when you hear the water in your kitchenette begin to run. Your head whips around to find Pierrot absent from where you told him to stay and instead standing by your dirty dishes, soaping up a sponge.

“No, drop it,” you instruct, opening your wardrobe with your foot and shoving the clothes inside. When he doesn’t, you pull the door shut, making a beeline over to the sink to take the sponge, only for him to block you with his back. “Give me that-”

“And why should I do that, my light?” he answers, his tone almost giddy and voice turning breathless the more you press against him to get the damn washing utensil.

“It’s my flat and my mess-” you protest, face heating as embarrassment overwhelms you. “Please-”

He turns his head to you, then, looking at you with a concerning level of fondness given the situation. “Oh, if you knew the things I’d do for you,” he sighs, a flash of some darker expression appearing as quickly as it leaves, “then you would know this is no problem for me. It is an honour to assist you, my dearest.”

“You shouldn’t-” Your sentence is cut off by the sudden feeling of hands around your waist, lifting you as if you weigh nothing, the movement stunning you into silence. Pierrot, on the other hand, seems positively pleased with himself, stepping over an empty water bottle to sit you on your bed. 

“Stay here,” he commands, humming happily to himself as he returns to the sink, leaving you blinking in shock.

“Fuck no,” you mutter under your breath, still mortified. If he isn’t staying in his place then you sure as hell are not going to either. The absurdity of the situation almost hits you as you take your duster to attempt and wrangle the biohazard that are your shelves, but it doesn’t. How could it? There’s no reality in which you could fully process having found yourself cleaning your depression room with a clown other than yourself, one that pretty much broke in, no less. So, instead, your brain focuses on dusting, wiping down each shelf until you manage to leave them all mostly clean. You straighten, drying your brow with your pyjama sleeve, just as the sink water finishes running.

When you turn, you find yourself face to face with a pair of wide, unblinking, golden eyes only a few centimetres away. A screech leaves you and you stumble back, the only thing stopping your fall being the arms that sweep you off your feet. The clown carries you against his chest, his pleased hum reverberating through your body as he sits himself on your bed, body pressing against your stuffed animals.

There’s a beat of silence. Two.

“Is this the part where you kill me?” you ask, watching how his smile softens.

“No, dearest, I already told you I have no interest in such a thing,” he hums in gentle amusement, thumb wiping a bead of sweat from your forehead. You don’t know why it’s this action that throws you out of your daze, but everything suddenly seems very, very real. The warmth of him pressed against you; the cool, night air blowing in from the door he came in through; the gentle scent of vanilla that seems to envelop you and him. The nights you imagined exactly this, albeit under different circumstances.

“You should sleep, hm?” he asks, though the tone makes it sound more like a soft order than a suggestion.

“I still don’t know you,” you say, traitorous heart refusing to cooperate when his thumb traces a circle on your forearm. Your touch starvation is about to get you killed.

Then again, do you really care? It would be nice to die in someone’s arms rather than alone in your room.

“But I know you,” he answers, voice quieter. “And you will come to know me.”

“You broke into my apartment.”

“I came to visit. That is normal of one courting you.”

Now this catches you off guard. “Courting me?”

He giggles, eyes of his mask narrowing. “Oh, how oblivious you are. How adorable.”

Nevermind, this definitely isn’t real. If the clown breaking into your flat didn’t make it obvious then someone flirting with you absolutely does. This does not happen. Not to you.

“But-” How do you even argue with someone seemingly so unaware of how odd all of this is? “This place was a mess. Why did you even stay?”

He laughs softly, shifting you in his arms. “Why would I not?”

“It was horrible. It was horrible and embarrassing and if I could just get myself together it wouldn’t-”

“It was yours,” he says just as surely. “Nothing that is yours could ever be anything but beautiful in my eyes.”

Maybe it's the sleepless nights, maybe it’s his warmth, but you feel yourself growing drowsy in his hold, sleep tugging on your eyelids.

It’s not like any of this is real, you think to yourself. When I wake up, it’ll all be as it should be. I’ll be alone again. Why shouldn’t I let myself enjoy this, just for a little while?

And so, you let your eyes drift shut, quietly relishing in the blissful feeling of someone against you. Someone warm. Someone breathing. How long has it been since you last felt this, since you last let yourself feel it? If you were not so completely convinced none of this is happening, you would have pushed him away, saved yourself the pain of remembering how pleasant this is, which only makes the absence worse. But it isn’t happening. Tomorrow, you’ll wake up to find your room still a mess, your dishes still unwashed, and your bed still empty.

It’s as you said - this isn’t real.

And if by some miracle he’s still here by morning? You’ll just call the police.