The Sacrifice of Buttons

The clown who killed a man
Probably didn't even mean to.
He'd just had enough.
It was for the children!= It was supposed to be for the children! =It was all for the children!
Not the 50-ish year old men in expensive suits with draping toupees and sniveling blondes precariously yet oh so carefully attached to their bodies.
The children!
Why else would one don such a nose?
Or drive such an uncomfortable car?
Or wear ill-fitting shoes
and buzzing hands
and baggy clothes
with holes that are never fully patched
for just the/an effect?
Why else would he shoot water into eyes?
And from flowers?? Really.
But they just never understood once they hit a certain age.
"I think that's what did it."
Or so the bearded lady said.
It was that they once saw and then stopped.
No one in the circus knew if it was due to those balancing act teenage years that the cotton candy- cheeked, fireworked- eyed children merely stopped, or what's worse, lost the ability to care.
And some were lucky for a balance beam decade.
The clown knew too many lion taming, trapezing teens.
And no one likes to watch their fans (grow up) go blind.
"Especially not a second-rate clown with a first rate heart" (she looked down saying so).
Well anyway, it wasn't water this time.
Water doesn't make you bleed through a hole in your chest.
And neither would laughing reasoned the clown-
and if laughing is too difficult to fake, no comment would be just as appreciated.
Why take away from the kids with snide remarks and sniggers?
They may be kids but they know when their dads or even just the fellow spectator is disapproving.
That's why he became a clown in the first place!
Because he noticed from a very early age just how disapproving everybody can be.
And so he decided to try to help them smile.