We were stricken by fear with the unnerving promise of roaming gangs of Clown-mask donning hoodlums, articles such as the Daily Telegraph stated that the “Killer clown craze spreads across Britain” in a tyrant of roaming, personified fear. We warned our kids of the imminent threat that had purged our smaller communities, our villages and our towns that were said to be alive at night with the sinister individuals that loiter with intent to harm us.
Epidemic
The build up to Halloween was tainted with the notion that the raising tension would break into a riot or an “epidemic”, as described by the Express, of mask wearing thugs that would raid our communities as a mass wave of terror.
And yet, when the clock struck twelve on Halloween night, we saw nothing. I decided to go for a walk that night to see it for myself, perhaps even to catch a clown in the act, yet I saw nothing.
Nothingness
Nothing was indeed the only presence on a night that should be alive with children trick or treating, with neighbors opening there doors in confidence to gift the youth of our communities with well deserved sweets from the effort they had put into there costumes. Pumpkins should have been lighting the ominous darkness and desolation that struck me to my core. ‘What a disappointment’ I thought to myself as I walked past houses with their lights switched off through the empty streets of Cirencester, absent of all decorations and with an ambience of sorrow for the children of the small towns and villages across the UK.
Nerves
Once again, much like the supposed Ebola epidemic within the UK, the threat that was hyped by media across the UK never happened. Some isolated cases of ‘killer clowns’ entwined with the media coverage had us convinced that it would spread to the furthest recesses of our country. This overblown to utter disproportion story had us so riled up, so nervous that our kids would be attacked that we had ruined the spirit of Halloween.
Disappointment
A few individuals who decided to don clown masks and follow a craze originally spawned in the United States ruined what should have been an evening of games, friends and entertainment for children and parents alike. Even Asda employees were told not to wear a clown mask in fear of scaring off customers, ruining a sub-genre of horror that is ‘scary clowns’ that has been around for years.
My favorite costume as a child was to dress as IT from the famous Stephen King novel, another deprivation for society as deemed unacceptable by the few cases that gripped the UK in fear. I suppose those who hyped the ‘epidemic’ had a perfectly pleasant Halloween spent reveling in their earnings, for the rest of us it was another evening of fearing the nonexistent threats that linger just outside our doors.
