A Word from Tephra: What Clown Town Actually Represents

I’ve always had quite the active imagination. I still remember seeing Clown Town in a dream a few years ago. That image stuck with me and is still evolving in ways that I never imagined that it would. It’s deeply connected to the world I grew up in as a child and the experiences that I’ve had as an adult. I think that all of us have our own places where we’ve always felt like an outsider or that we are pretending to play a part. All of this is what Clown Town actually represents.

So what is Clown Town? 

Clown Town is the place where you have to play a part in order to fit in. We slap on that costume and smile, smile, smile, but who are we really?

 

Clown Town has a very capitalistic representation as well. It’s about power and wealth at any cost.

 

Clown Town represents the things that we want growing up that aren’t really what we think they are on the surface.

I am so excited to have the opportunity to write something that will hopefully influence young people to think about the life that they’re living. Duchess’ journey into a fake world that actually despises her is a powerful one. As the story continues, she will have to choose to be bound by her hatred of the clowns or freed by her new found destiny.

We all have this choice.

Escape to Pearl City Prologue

Written in the words of Duchess of the Faree Clan, Princess of the Fairies


The ringing in my ears won’t stop. I hear a knock on a door. No, it’s a hammer banging on a wall—but now it has stopped. I see something that hurts my eyes. It’s the sun, yet it hurts me now. Didn’t I love the sun when I was a child growing up in the Garden Gate Village? I can’t remember now…the sun…my home…my life…my dreams…

I hear my mother call my name.

“Duchess, where are you sweet child?” she calls.

My eyes still hurt but are open to see the light…

I see the sun, I feel the earth, I feel each flower on my fingertips as I walk through a field of lilies. I shut my eyes to listen to the water’s voice flow through my spirit. My feet feel the earth and the ground, yet I have no stinging pain of sharp rocks, nor do I feel the tiny legs of ants crawl across my toes.

Am I awake? Am I really here? Is this death?

I frantically search for my mother, but I only hear her voice. It’s too much to take, so I shut my eyes to breathe in. When I open them again my world has changed…

I can see my cottage just over the hill of green that I tumbled down as a child. The memory of my village life seems like a dream that I had many years ago.  Now I hear voices and see the dark dances of sorcerers that have harvested the essence of my soul.

I was so unhappy for so long as a child, even though I was surrounded by the beauty of the earth that those on high gave to humanity long ago. I dreamed of a life that was not meant for me. I loved a man that hated me. I lived a lie that will haunt me forever.

Now I head into the unknown without knowing who I am. What I once knew as love I now fear. My world…it changes. It shifts like the eyes of a lion stalking its prey. I close my eyes in fear, hoping to wake up but I can’t. I’m caught in his lair.

I’ve heard his voice many times. I still hear it echoing in my head. He calls to his conjurers, to his soldiers and to all of darkness to come to him and bow before him.

I scream at him, “What am I to do with the world’s dark destiny? Tell me!”

I’ve chased him in my dreams yelling that I am only a village girl. What have I to do with the end of the world!? Please…please…please let me go.

In every dream Epsilon turns to me and says, “The world can be overthrown by an army of ants. Its destiny is in the hands of the abandoned, yet they do not know it nor act upon it.”

I will never be who I once was.