The Long Walk

Chella Courington

The daughter was ten. The father was thirty-nine.  Taking her to the big top was what he gave her every year though he knew she feared the clowns. The tall ones on stilts with rainbow striped pants and floppy blue shoes. The little ones, mouths smeared big red.  “They are just sad souls trying to make us laugh,” the father would say, squeezing the daughter’s hand. He started to bring home long pieces of wood, wing nuts, and washers. She heard the buzz of saws and the bite of drills during the day and felt their vibrations in her sleep. Then the sounds stopped and the garage doors lifted. She watched him walk on stilts down the drive and turn left onto the street.