A Tale of Dignity

There was a clown named Lane who was so good at her profession that she became known as a respected philosopher and theologian. Each evening after her circus performances, she would gather in a tent with a growing band of followers to talk, laugh and tell stories. Her fame spread, as well as her strong effect on her followers, some of whom were seized by the desire to apprentice to her as clowns themselves. These students were so widely sought after that they began to filter forth from the circus trades into unusual professions. Eventually "Lanies" were working as teachers, plumbers, doctors, aerospace engineers, and pizza delivery drivers. A Lanie transformed his once-mediocre law practice and became a nationally prominent trial lawyer, noted for his ability to represent a case for either prosecution or defense. Another Lanie ran a brilliant and successful campaign to be elected a senator of Vermont.

Apart from their preternatural clowning skills and a trademark serious demeanor which alone provoked great laughter and merriment in almost any onlooker, Lanies were known for their nearly supernatural ability to tweak people on the nose. Despite the most stringent security measures, Lanies were generally able, through scheme and strategem and bare-facedness, to slip in and apply a solemn pinch upon the proboscis of most anyone. Presidents and pimps, banking magnates and Special Forces colonels and heads of drug cartels were tweaked on their noses, and many found that it was an experience strenuous to endure.

Some considered it a singular honor to have been thus distinguished, once they had recovered from the occurrence. Others of course did not relish the memory of the experience or its implications. Lanies were sometimes subject to varying acts of retribution, none of which even slowed them down. When publicized, such acts of course served to strengthen general endearment over a period of decades which, historians eventually agreed, were thus imbued with a welcome sense of perspective.

At length Lane lay dying, and chanced to have a most prominent visitor who spoke to her at length, a man of the cloth possessed of definite opinions of the Lanies and of the intent to reacquaint Lane with her Maker's desires for her before being required to explain the matter in person.

When he had finished, he and his retinue turned over their attention to the clown.

Lane took his hand with great care, looked him in the eye for a long moment, and said weakly, "My good sir, I have given my life to prepare for this moment."


And she tweaked his nose, and died.