Party Colors

I wanted to see how Jake's birthday party was going and reached over the gate to let myself into the Schwimmer's backyard. As I did so there was a loud POP and I stepped into a nightmare carnival.

Frozen in disbelief, I tried to make sense of what was going on. A clown was bleeding from some kind of spurting stomach wound. Children screamed; a chorus of shrill whistles. If it was some macabre party trick, color me convinced. I had never seen so much blood in real life. It was so dark, almost black, even in direct sunlight.

My moment of paralyzation shattered like glass and everything happened at once. The clown fell to his knees and then down to all fours. Still the children screamed. I grabbed the closest thing to me to staunch the flow of blood, a roll of paper towels, and moved toward him. A crash erupted near the sliding glass door as Jake's dad, Tom, backed into the refreshment table and tipped it over, sending the punch bowl and dozens of dixie cups cascading across the patio in a frothy rainbow wave.