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Center your story around a comedian, clown, street performer, or magician.

Posted in Short Story on Apr 18, 2025

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✍️ 61 stories

It's Only a Paper Moon

Submitted to Contest #299

They say that if a man has not succeeded by thirty, then he has failed - and if any proof of that were needed, ask Dixon. At fifty, Dixon worked part-time in a shoe shop in the centre of a dying city where department store doorways gave way to a global parade of beggars and addicts, shooting up and spitting out. He found the only way to deal with this unsatisfactory life was to laugh at it; not as an act of futile submission but as a nod to courageous defiance.Ten years earlier, his talents had led him to the foothills of corporate greatness...

19 likes 16 comments 16
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The Green Mamba Rises

Submitted to Contest #299

Bartholomew had a very important task. He and he alone had been chosen to guard against the Transmogrification. All of Capparta, not to mention the entire Midrealm, depended on him. It involved keeping his eyes open, and it was boring as hell. Why Stonemere had selected him among all the other acolytes was beyond anyone's ken, especially Bartholomew's. Sure, he had some modicum of talent for the lower forms of physical magic, but elemental spells eluded him and he was a miserable failure when it came to astral projection. Yet no magic was ne...

17 likes 9 comments 9
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Whiskey Canvas

Submitted to Contest #299

[Warning: Substance Abuse, Language, Suicide, Physical Violence]Face-down in Goliath’s elephant pen, Gus Harper was a masterpiece of ruin—sprawled amid piles of feces, clown suit faded, one shoe dangling. His orange wig clung, torn. The pen’s rusted metal poles framed him, a grotesque portrait in dirt and despair, as if the circus itself had vomited him out.“Hey! Get up, drunk! Clown car’s in twenty minutes!” Benny Walsh’s voice cracked from above, his lean frame perched on the fence. Another clown, makeup smudged but dignified, Benny eyed G...

16 likes 22 comments 22
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Guitar Jesus

Submitted to Contest #299

"Hey look! It's Jesus Christ"The small crowd around him laughs as he makes fun of my long hair and beard, as usual. My boss allows Stan the Entertainer, as he styles himself, to do his street performances outside the music store where I work. The owner of the store thought it would be good for business. It does guarantee there are always people on the sidewalk in front. There are even more now that I started to be part of the act. I’ve come to enjoy my role. It’s a rush, and I even show up for my job early in order to perform.“What are you h...

14 likes 6 comments 6
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Yarra Noir - Or Mime Your Own Business

Submitted to Contest #299

The performer on the high unicycle caught the third knife between his teeth and raised his hands to appreciative applause. The Southbank crowd started to disperse, a little happier for the momentary distraction. One man, dressed in a black t-shirt and Hawaiian shirt over jeans, strolled towards Crown Casino, passing a sidewalk artist in the midst of creating (or recreating) visions in vivid chalk. The artist’s hat sat beside the gorgeous cityscape, pointedly asking for financial recognition. The man dropped a gold coin donation in the hat an...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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coulrophobia

Submitted to Contest #299

Have you ever been to a place that has the world's scariest clowns? I think not. When I was a little girl I would see a man out of my window dressed as a clown. An evil clown. It would have to be midnight when everybody was asleep and he would just appear out of the darkness. I told my mother when it happened but the doctors leveled it down to skitsofrinia and psychotic episodes. Unfair right? Considering they didn't think to investigate it more. I would stay awake and try to take photographs of him but he would vanish in the blink of an eye...

12 likes 10 comments 10
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Dax McGraff: Vibes Only

Submitted to Contest #299

Hello, Baltimore! Honestly, that was a pretty weak response, Baltimore. I was looking for wild cheers. Are you guys even awake out there? My goal for the next thirty minutes is to wake you up - to make you bust out laughing so hard that at least three of you pee your pants. Not talking like adult diapers level - just a little bit of muscle failure that leads to some embarrassing questions from your date later tonight. If you’d asked me ten years ago, I’d’ve told you I would never do stand-up comedy, not in a million years. I was a writer; I ...

12 likes 3 comments 3
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Now You See It... Now It’s Just Awkward

Submitted to Contest #299

On the cobbled fringe of Leicester Square, nestled between a suspiciously smug hot dog cart and the ever-watchful bronze gaze of the Bugs Bunny statue, stood a small man in a purple velvet cape that had obviously once seen better days. The cape flared every time he moved, well, at least, it tried. One corner was caught in the Velcro of his bag, and the other trailed along the pavement like an introvert at a networking event.“Ladies and gentlemen!” he boomed out, raising his voice above the clamour of the TikTok dancers, the revelling footbal...

12 likes 10 comments 10
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The Jester’s Tale

Submitted to Contest #299

Chocolate and cheese Are sure to please The maddest dreams Are made of theseThere was Dagonet, King Arthur’s jester, cartwheeling around the room while balancing a platter of cheese and chocolate and singing!Little Plump Jo had always been subject to vivid dreams. Sometimes she could remember them in detail; but mostly they vanished at the call of the alarm clock. Sometimes they were scary, sometimes heartwarming, sometimes amusing.Often her dreams were based on incidences of the previous day or solving problems in her current life situatio...

11 likes 5 comments 5
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From Raging Bulls to Roaring Laughter

Submitted to Contest #299

My name is Fernando Ramírez. I used to be a bullfighter. My career wasn’t long, but it was exciting. Growing up, my father often took the whole family to the bullfights at Plaza de Toros México. The scent of roasted peanuts and spilled beer mixed with the sharp musk of the arena sand. The spectacle felt like magic to me. The elegance of the matador’s movements, shimmering in their embroidered suit under the bright stadium lights, contrasted with the brute force of the bull in a way that left me transfixed. The crowd's roar rolled over me lik...

11 likes 6 comments 6
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HOA Meeting - April 26, 2025

Submitted to Contest #299

Squeak squeak. The pounding of the inflatable gavel spread through the tent like a chill in the air. Noses stopped honking, and the laughing hushed. A green-haired clown sprayed the row in front of her with seltzer and the whole tent exploded again.Squeak squeak. The gavel struck again. The clown in the long red and white striped robe stood from his seat at the back of the tent and squeaked the gavel right into his hand. Then he moved about the tent, squeaking it into the walls of the tent as he went. The hush built up again.The robed clown ...

10 likes 3 comments 3
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A bridge between people

Submitted to Contest #299

The city was a symphony of honking taxis, chattering crowds, and distant sirens—a chaotic melody to which Leo, the clown, danced. Not literally, not yet. He stood in the alleyway beside O’Malley’s Irish Pub, adjusting his oversized shoes and painting a fresh, vibrant red smile onto his face with practiced ease. The damp chill of the evening seeped into his thin costume, but Leo didn't mind. He was about to step into his element.Leo wasn’t just any clown. He was Leo the Luminous, the Purveyor of Peculiarities, the Master of Merriment (at leas...

10 likes 2 comments 2
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Where the Punchlines Go

Submitted to Contest #299

Barry Klein never meant to be funny. In fact, if you asked him, he’d say he spent the better half of his twenties trying to disappear. The late nights, the heroin, the methadone when he tried to quit, then the heroin again—it was a cycle he was too tired to name, but too wired to stop. He slept on couches, in his car, sometimes on rooftops when the summer air felt less suffocating than the city below.He stumbled into comedy the way most addicts stumble into trouble—desperate and broke. A Tuesday open mic night at The Gutter Lamp Lounge promi...

10 likes 5 comments 5
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The Cursed Chuckles of Archmage Thistlewhisk

Submitted to Contest #299

In the sprawling, semi-organized continent of Noodlewyn—which was shaped suspiciously like a duck mid-waddle—there stood a tower so crooked it could only be the home of someone either profoundly magical or incredibly drunk. Spoiler: it was both. The Tower of Whimsy, stitched together with floating stones and poorly-thought-out architectural ambition, was home to Archmage Thistlewhisk—renowned spellcaster, master of twelve types of elemental fire, and, unfortunately, an involuntary comedian. You might be wondering: why would a wizard of such ...

10 likes 5 comments 5
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do you believe in life after love?

Submitted to Contest #299

Lorraine’s dorm was once a hospice. Wood floors, hospital fluorescence in the hallways. Decades of white paint smear over four short walls. She’s plastered them with polaroids of her girlfriend. 6:17 PM: girlfriend was supposed to call 17 minutes ago. Lorraine sits cross-armed on a rickety college-issued bed, art history homework print-outs scattered on her knees, phone face-down, black, and silent. Lorraine imagines herself saying tired cliches to her friends: “Yeah, this long-distance thing just isn’t working out.” Lorraine’s dorm share...

10 likes 3 comments 3
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