Haris was a nine-year-old boy who lived with his family in the city’s suburbs. Almost every other month, particularly on the weekends, Haris and his family went on picnics to different places.

Once Haris’ parents decided to head to the forest for their weekend shenanigans. So, with all their camping gear and other necessities, the family headed for their destination.

The forest they had decided to go to was not an ordinary one, but a very well-known tourist spot, so it was no surprise that every few yards, the travellers would stumble across cottages, benches, helping-hand stations and even little shops.

After setting up a camp and being done with eating the sandwiches that Haris’ mum had made, he and his brothers went a little farther from their tent, to explore the wilderness.

Whilst his elder brothers were busy contemplating whether the frog on a random tree was poisonous or not, Haris felt bored and yawned. Then he saw a bench with an umbrella, and signalled to his brothers that he was going to take a nap on the bench.

After what felt like 15 minutes, Haris woke up. With his groggy eyes, he looked around him, realising he had slept for hours, since it was now dark. He was quite a brave boy, so he didn’t panic when he saw that his brothers were nowhere in his sight. But as soon as he reached the place where his family’s tent was supposed to be, his heart started to race like a leopard on a chase. There was nothing and no one there.

He ran towards one of those stations where helpers are always around to help with any kind of accident. To his surprise, no one was there either. His feet were hurting at that point since he had walked a lot, but he still went to other stations but he did not find anyone. It seemed he was all alone in the forest.

At that moment, everything felt like a nightmare. But all of it was too real to not be true. He then decided to seek refuge in one of the cottages, which were also empty.

As he walked quickly towards the nearest cottage, Haris could feel the presence of someone matching his steps behind him. He turned to look behind him, but no one was there. This happened at least six times till Haris made it to a cottage’s porch.

As soon as Haris turned the doorknob to open the front door, he felt a faint breath on his right shoulder. Shaking, he turned around to find a clown looking down on him.

Panicking, Haris quickly entered the cottage and closed the door behind him, locked it and ran to the other end of the room. He knew that the door would not hold the clown much longer, as the clown kept banging on it. Haris found a closet. It was big enough for him to hide inside, so he quickly sought refuge in it.

A few minutes later, the banging stopped. Haris crouched forward and looked through the small gap between the closet’s door to get an update on the clown, but he saw nothing unusual.

He suddenly felt as if a bug was crawling on his left shoulder, so he turned to look at it. To his surprise, the clown was sitting inside the closet and grinning evilly at Haris. Adding to Haris’ horror, the clown was holding an unusually large, colourful hammer. Haris knew what was about to happen.

So, he screeched, kicked the clown in the face and ran out of the closet. Before heading out, he went to the kitchen inside the cottage, grabbed a saucepan and made a run for the forest. The clown would not stop chasing him while Haris tried his best to somehow dodge the clown and escape.

Finally, the moment came when Haris could not find the clown chasing him. He let out a sigh of relief, believing that he had been successful in escaping the maniacal clown. But fate had other plans. As soon as Haris turned his head to the front, he saw the clown looking right into his eyes. At that point, the saucepan in his hand dropped because of sheer terror.

The clown took the opportunity to push Haris down to the ground. Haris was looking straight at the sky and he saw the colourful hammer coming closer and closer to his face. He shut his eyes tight, bracing for the moment when he would be hit.

“Bang! Crack!”

A fairly sweaty Haris’ eyes shot open. His heart was pounding loudly. Haris was being woken up by his brothers from his 15-minute nap.

“Finally awake, are you now, little guy?” commented Haris’ elder brother, while breaking random twigs.

“Let’s head back to the tent,” said the other one.

The years following Haris’ trip to the forest were filled with the phobia of clowns. On his 17th birthday, Haris went to the local fair where clowns performed every year. At first, Haris panicked at the sight of the clowns on the stage and he almost got up to run. Then he looked around at the people who were enjoying the show and even little children were clapping with joy.

Haris continued to sit, though he would close his eye frequently to stop looking at the clowns. Somehow, he managed to sit through the whole show without running away, although his heart was beating very fast and he was sweating.

From that birthday onwards, Haris annually visited the circus and in time overcame his fear of clowns. Actually, a person can overcome any fear, if one musters up enough courage to face what they fear.

Published in Dawn, Young World, October 23rd, 2021