"I like clowns," the clown said, "All my friends are clowns."
I looked around, there was nothing but the desert and the sky. Nothing but dark orange and gloomy navy. There is reason in everything, and so there was a reason for a bus stop to have been placed right there, in the middle of the dry cracked flatness. A girl-clown and two boy-clowns were at the bus stop waiting. Every now and then the sound of applause came pouring forth out of the air, and the three clowns cordially thanked the surroundings. One of the boys always yelled "Thanks for coming late!" Half-offended and half-loving.

I gently invited the memory of the clowns from my childhood. They took the position together with their circus. They never came without the circus. The magnificent Moscow Circus was their only territory as my memory holds it. They were fantastically funny and screwy, and, as I remember, always the best part of any program for me, but the smell of their make up used to be so strong and repelling, that, sadly, my amazement was always cancelled by disgust.

"Yeah, I like clowns too," I lied, for the reason that there is always a potential.

If theatre is not physical, there is hardly any aesthetic wonder in it for me any more. It is easy to flick the switch of preferences, when by default they are all classical. Creative predators make your classical setup a desirable target. They throw themselves at you from every curtain, trying to convert you their way. They appeal to you effortlessly.

There is reason in everything, and so there was a reason for the bus stop with the clowns to emerge out of nowhere in the middle of Mojave. They will always be waiting for the bus, and the boy-clown will always yell "Thanks for coming late!" I will always say, "I like clowns too," and there will always be a confusion as to what my relationship with clowns really is.



In contrast, what has not happened yet possesses tremendous power to be changed, to be modified, and to reemerge in your dreamscape in as many different disguises as you have time for. "I like clowns too, let's have some coffee," you can say, never retrieving the armies of memories about clowns at all. But you can also say: "I like clowns too. Back in my childhood there were so many of them, performing exclusively as a part of a circus program, they were fantastic. And I never liked seeing poor animals being forced to do merciless stunts anyway. I only came to circus for the clowns. I only talked about them when adults asked what I had seen."

You can say: "Oh, I am completely free now and will follow you to your next planet, so where is the spaceship, will I turn into eggs and fibers as soon as we cross the Earth orbit, let's go, let's do it, for I am excited, so what should I pack" Or, conversely, you can say: "What are you expecting, you are such a clown and your make up stinks, and I am classically trained, and the only reason for you to be here is to make me laugh." Or you can just say: "If I can kiss you now, I will kiss you again and again, until I don't know where you end and I begin." and all the various optional ways and complications...