It was staring through you, it’s a colorful mockery of man. Sitting across from you sat the clown, propped upright waiting to be called onto the sound stage. The two of you try to shake hands, maybe attempt to break the awkward silence, but a plane of glass breaks your attempts at physical coexistence. 

It lowers its gloved hand covered in a red glossy fabric that made up a similarly glossy bow tie, its arm snaking back to its side in a whir of clicking and twisting. It couldn’t be real, neither of its arms could be, they were a pair of pink and white coils pretending to impersonate human limbs. Its legs were the same way, much less boots and more dark purple stilts, they moved just as mechanically. Its outfit was a red pinstripe suit, cut off from the shoulder, rolled up at the knee, you expect it to make up for the blood it likely didn’t have going off its complexion. Its face was a light gray, whatever natural color was there was bleached away forcefully in place of a permanent foundation. Whatever color was there in spite, a pale imitation, rosy cheeks represented by spheres embedded into the side of its face and two small triangles below the eyes that pointed to a plastic smile. 

You lean in closer, it mimics you, being able to see its face in much more detail. Despite its organic look, you suspect it looked different before. Its face was slim, much slimmer than yours, lighter lines shaping its face. Clearly it had been reconstructed, for what reason you don’t know, nor do you think you want to.

You were concerned by the gold, it wasn’t there much, but in two areas. Two golden balls at the end of antenna jammed into the skull, you think, cyan hair covers the point of entry. Maybe it’s used to communicate with whatever alien deemed this thing fit to teach children. The only other gold was a pin, with as wide of a smile as the face. It felt redundant, the clown was already happy, maybe it was a backup smile, working like a backup generator when the other one failed.

Maybe it’d be best to just look away, the porcelain balls it would call eyes are starting to creep you out. It could be worse, you could be the mime, which was nearly identical. Well, identical in looks only, it’s a limbless slab of meat with even less color and lacking any teeth and eyeballs. It’s oddly blurry, you didn’t even know someone could be blurry.

The sweet release of a buzzer sounded off, releasing you and the now towering carnival clockwork from your room. You walk out on stage, a roar of young voices fills the air. “Who’s ready to learn about the ABC’s?” the clown's voice booms through your throat. You might as well just let it happen, it’s not your body anymore anyway… It hasn’t been for years…