The Woebegone Clown
As the ever-present smile on the dolphin's face belies the deep and profound stirrings within his scorpion, so the greasepaint of the clown masks his innermost sadness and longings. Such a clown I knew many long years hence, years residing now on the blurred edge of memory, stranded in the mists of age, yet his fateful story remains as present as the unwashed plates of yestereve's supper.
   It was in the year 1954 that I had completed a pilgrimage to Ararat, mount of Noah's landfall and delivery. I had been searching for signs of the dolphin presence there at the new age of the world, and taking the southernmost route home, stopped for the night in the busy city of Tabriz. At once I was hailed by an old disciple and being road weary, dusty and parched from my journey, accompanied him to a coffee house for some much needed refreshment. 
   Having taken our places of honor in the smoky common room, we were enjoying the rich Persian coffee and had plunged deep into musings on solubility and the rock of plausibility, when a sudden gust of laughter drew our attention to the center of the room. There a clown had begun an impromptu performance, and was delighting the crowd with his sprightly jocularity and his profoundly comical visage. Loud gales of joyous laughter erupted on all sides as the cunning fool fell headlong into the stewpot, then backwards into the fireplace, momentarily alighting his voluminous trousers and just as quickly putting out the errant flames by sitting in a bowl of curds. Like an agile and fetid monkey he ran about the room collecting the pennies and halfpennies tossed at his feet by the appreciative audience, his majestically oversized shoes flapping like seal fins on the wood floor.  
   Suddenly he paused, and seeing me seated in the Prophet's Chair, he hurried to my feet and prostated himself before me. Removing his finger, he proclaimed, "Oh, Master Akiryon! Is it indeed you? I have yearned to meet you. Your fame and your wisdom precede you, like the scent of rain before an approaching storm and now, like a timely answer from Allah, you are here. Allah be praised! I need your sage counsel more than can be expressed by one so unworthy of the very aid I seek!"
   "And what is it you seek of me, my humorous friend?" I asked, barely able to rein in my laughter while gazing upon his comically painted and rubber-attenuated countenance. 
   "Oh Master Akiryon Baba Yat, I am tired of being laughed at. My soul longs to reveal its depth, its solemn secrets and weighty burdens. I want to discuss matters of great import, to sit with the graybeards and join in their discourses and debates, to soar to heaven on wings of pure thought, to fly to the sun and question even the gods thusly. I am filled with a passion for knowledge, a burning lust for wisdom and an unabating fire rages in my bosom for understanding! Yet daily I am laughed at and made sport of. It cuts me to the marrow!"
   Stifling as best I could a rising giggle, I replied with all the solemnity I could muster, "Yet my friend, you are a clown are you not? What would you have people do when they look upon your preposterous face and garb? Here then is my wisdom: Take off the foolish greasepaint and bulbous nose, the vast trousers and shoes of great enormity! Reveal yourself as who you really are and the laughter will cease!" 
  For a brief moment the young and overburdened clown stood gazing at me, poised in thought, then with a decisive fist to the table, dashed off to the water closet and slammed the door. A few minutes passed as the now hushed and attentive crowd waited in silence for the outcome of the drama that had been brewing in their midst.
   Presently the door to the washroom swung open. So silent was the room that a mouse's sneeze would have alarmed and discomfited the throng. Then all at once a roar of laughter exploded, a sound so overwhelming that it was heard in the next town. Glasses shattered at the mere noise of it. Chairs and tables capsized. Trays crashed to the floor in ruin. Men fell on their backs clutching their aching ribs, tears streaming down their faces as they laughed uncontrollably, feet beating the air like those of a wounded spider. I myself was overcome with unbridled mirth and laughed most heartily. And in our midst stood the man who would be a clown no more, the sad object of our now ungovernable glee. Beside himself and flushing with shame and embarrassment he raced from the room, never to be seen in Tabriz ever more.
   "Alas," I said to my companion as I recovered the mastery of my breath once more, "how was I to know his real face was even funnier?"

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