🎉🎈Happy Birthday wish 🎉🎈

polka dots and a matching hat, and has giant red shoes and a matching nose to go with it. I stare at this clown sitting at the table for what feels like the longest minute of my life. The clown is still, but I see him blink. He blinks, his body can make the smallest shifts of movements, and his breathing…His breathing is heavy, I could almost feel it as he’s across the room from me. Then the clown speaks.

“Happy birthday, Michael.”

Once I hear the clown’s raspy voice say those words, I turn and run. The clown sounds like he stumbles in his attempt to try and chase after me as I hear the sound of a few squeaks and a hard thump on the wooden floor. I just keep my face forward and run upstairs.

“Where are you going? I just want to talk to you!” The clown says as I try to find any possible way to hide. I try to see if any of the doors open, but none of them budge. I frantically pull and tug on each door before I see the bathroom door open at a crack, I rush in, barely squeezing myself through.

“You don’t have to be scared, I only want to talk. I noticed that you tried to help your family, that’s a good trait, one of many that I know are in that head of yours.” The clown’s squeaky shoes slowly squeak their way up the stairs. The shoes make the most overdrawn yelps of rubber that I’ve heard, the clown doesn’t rush, but instead takes all the time in the world to make every step. I just try to pick up anything in the bathroom that I can find as a weapon, but everything is staying in place. Not like the clown can come into the door, but I try to fit myself through the gap of the curtains of the bathtub, hiding there and keeping silent.

“Doesn’t it feel awful? Knowing that you try to save them, even though your wish is just astronomically rude.” I can hear the clown’s shoes noisily make their way across the hall. Though, I can’t help but to think over the clown’s words. How could he know my wish? He read my mind somehow, can he read it now? Though, I don’t think I was trying to save them…I just didn’t want to be alone. Definitely not now, I wanted their stillness to be gone, but…I think I’d prefer it.

“Don’t you think about what they’ve done for you?” The clown’s shoes make their way past the bathroom. Though what has my family done for me? Everything they do is just shallow attempts of trying to make me happy, I can’t really think of a moment when they did something that wasn’t so generic or predictable. They had to support me, they had to celebrate my accomplishments, they had to celebrate every holiday, so…What is this clown talking about?

“And you think it’s fair for them to not be upset about you existing? Or even care?” The clown’s shoes stop right in front of the bathroom door. I just didn’t want to exist because they do nothing out of their way for me…I don’t matter, but what is this clown trying to say? I believe he can’t just walk into the bathroom.

I’m proven wrong again by the clown’s grunts and squeaks pushes through the door before I hear him stop, his heavy breathing now inside of the bathroom.