Afterthoughts
It can’t be said with certainty the mime’s life would have been saved had the snow storm been on time, but it’s the conclusion to which most rationale people would come.  The flurry was to have hit at precisely noon; however, it arrived at half-past the hour, and it wasn’t until then that the patrons at the Robust Café realized something was wrong with Boyd Robertson (the mime).  From inside the warmth of the Robust, the clientele began to see the mime really was trapped in a box.

According to the coroner’s report, the mime suffocated at 12:03 pm.  Had the snow flurry hit on time, his struggles might have been taken more seriously.  You see, it was the build-up of the snow on the otherwise invisible box that drew people’s attention.

Laying Blame
I don’t blame the Robust’s lunch crowd for missing the signs of the mime’s struggle.  After all, part of his shtick was to appear to be trapped in a box, and the mime was always quite convincing.  Truthfully, I blame myself for Boyd’s demise.  He’d tried to warn me his routine was taking over his life, and at first, I simply refused to believe him.

Silence Becomes Him
Although Boyd and I spent time together on a regular basis, the last time he spoke to me was nearly a year ago.  He showed up at my office and began writing furiously on page-after-page of the small pad of post-it-notes I kept on my desk.  I laughed at him—I thought the new gag was a hoot.  No sooner had I done so, and he stopped writing his face growing angry.  Before I could read what he’d written, he’d stomped out of my office (my pad of post-it-notes in hand) and was gone.

I called him a number of times that night, but no one answered.  A week later, he finally picked up, but he still didn’t speak to me.  At first there was silence.  Then, I heard the unmusical notes of the numbers on the phone’s keypad being pushed.  My ears ringing and my ire roused, I hung up.  It was the last time I called him.

Show Me Your Hands
Nearly a month after the phone-call incident, Boyd showed up at my apartment.  He was disheveled and looked as if he’d aged ten years.  His T-shirt and jeans were wrinkled as if they’d been slept in for the past week, and the ball cap he wore concealed what was obviously unkempt hair.  If it weren’t for a lack of odor and the ridiculously white gloves he wore, I’d have thought he’d become homeless.  He still wouldn’t talk to me.

I invited him in, and over a six-pack of beer, I read as he wrote on a portable whiteboard.  He began by writing that he’d lost his voice.  (I was thinking he meant he’d contracted laryngitis, but he meant it was gone—for good.)  He wrote that something was wrong with him—that he thought he was going crazy.  (I began to wonder if the beer had been such a good idea.)  Boyd had never been one to indulge in drugs, but looking at him and reading what he wrote, I wondered.  I asked him if he’d been using anything.  He swore he hadn’t.  I told him he looked like shit, and he bowed his head and nodded.  I asked him about the white gloves he was wearing, remnants of his mime’s attire, and he began to write his answer but stopped.  He looked me squarely in the eyes before putting down his whiteboard and marker and peeling off his gloves—three times.  Each time he peeled the gloves off, they revealed another set below.  I wasn’t amused, and I told him as much.  In answer, he held his hands out to me and gestured until I understood he wanted me to remove the gloves.  I did.  Five times.  And each time I removed the gloves, another pair appeared in their place.  (Before I pulled the fourth and fifth times, I peeked between the fabric of Boyd’s right glove, and I saw his skin.)

Put On a Happy Face
Boyd spent that night at my apartment.  The beer and the late hour of his arrival had made me weary, so I left him on the sofa with blankets, a pillow, and the TV remote.  Before heading to bed, I put fresh towels and a change of clothes in the hall bathroom.  (I’d hoped he’d take the hint in the morning and clean himself up.)

I awoke the next day to the sound of the shower running and the smell of coffee brewing.  As the previous night’s events began to replay themselves in my head, I felt a sense of relief.  Coffee and a running shower were sure signs Boyd was done playing at whatever game he’d begun the previous month.  I looked forward to hearing what he had to say for himself, so I settled in the kitchen with a large cup of coffee waiting for the old Boyd to arrive.

Engrossed in a magazine, I hadn’t heard him enter the kitchen, but the tinkle of a spoon on the side of a coffee mug alerted me to his presence.  I put down what I was reading and offered up a warm greeting.  Boyd turned, and I nearly spilled the sip of coffee I was taking down the front of my robe.  Staring back at me was a face covered in black and white make-up—mime makeup—and as I watched, a freshly shaved, showered, and cleanly clothed Boyd sipped his coffee, his hands covered by white gloves.

I grew angry and fired accusations at him.  Without his whiteboard, Boyd relied on his body language to reply.  I felt like a fool as I stood in my kitchen trying to converse with a man who refused to speak—a man whose make-up and gesturing seemed to mock me.  Boyd slammed down his mug of coffee, stormed out of the kitchen, and returned writing furiously on his whiteboard.

Don’t you see?

It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.

I’m becoming a mime.

Before I could answer, Boyd rubbed at his face with the palm of one gloved hand, and having done so, he held the palm up to me.  It was smeared with black and white grease paint, but his face remained perfectly decorated.

He removed the glove (a fresh, white one emerging beneath) and repeated the process.  More smeared grease paint appeared on his palm, but nothing about his face make-up changed.  Boyd grabbed the hand towel from the kitchen counter, gave it to me, and pointed at his face.  I dabbed at his forehead, pulled the towel away, and saw paint on the cloth.  I looked at his forehead, and saw no indication I’d touched him.  I tried a cheek, and the results were the same.  I was moving toward his chin when Boyd grabbed my hand, placed the towel in the middle of his face, and rubbed vigorously.  I could feel the hollows of his eyes and the rise of his nose below my towel-covered hand, yet when he pulled the towel away from his face, his make-up remained intact.

The Clothes Make the Man
I’d left the kitchen in an unsteady state of mind, and even after my own shower and shave, I was at a loss about how to deal with what I’d witnessed.  As I removed the numerous bits of tissue from my razor-nicked face, I wondered if Boyd and I were sharing a type of madness.  Then I thought I might have been in a terrible accident, and tried convincing myself that the whole Boyd thing was part of my coma-induced imagination.  I was willing to accept almost anything but the thought that a man I knew was turning into the thing he spent his workday being.

By the time I returned to the kitchen, Boyd had departed.  He’d left a note saying he’d gone out for some air and that he’d bring back breakfast.  An hour later, he returned.  His arms were filled with two shopping bags of groceries, and it wasn’t until he’d put down the bags and begun unpacking them that I noticed the shirt I’d lent him was gone.  He still wore the jeans I’d given him, but in place of the tan oxford, Boyd wore a horizontally striped black and white, long-sleeved shirt.

He waited until we were both done eating before trying to remove the shirt.  Neither of us was surprised to watch as another appeared in its place in the same fashion as the gloves.  Within two days, black pants and a black beret were permanent fixtures on Boyd’s body, and I no longer questioned his sanity or mine.  Although I didn’t understand the how of it, there was no doubt in my mind that Boyd Robertson was no longer a man—he was a mime.

Life Goes On
Boyd became a permanent fixture on my sofa, and that suited us both just fine.  I can’t speak to what it’s like turning into a make-believe thing, but I can say knowing someone who has changed into something that is otherwise imaginary puts a tremendous amount of stress on one’s sanity.  I think each of us felt a little less crazy around the other.

We fell into a routine that was as close to normal as possible.  Boyd went back to work and marveled at the time and money he saved not having to “get ready” each day.  I returned to my accounting job, and I looked forward to the camaraderie of having a roommate with whom to share pizza and beer and the joys of sports on HD TV.  I even became adept at reading Boyd’s body language and facial expressions, so he rarely needed his white board to communicate with me.  It was a comfortable if odd six months of my life.

Last Saturday, I grew worried when I realized Boyd was late coming home.  It was unusual, and in our already unusual lives, any deviation was notable—and worrisome.  Knowing he spent his mid-Saturdays performing at the Robust Café, I set off to see if he was there.  I presumed he might have hit a boisterous lunch crowd and decided to work into the evening, but as soon as I stepped outside, I realized the severity of the snow should have ended Boyd’s day.  I was still two blocks away from the Robust when I became aware of the not-so-distant sound of sirens.  The noise grew louder as my heart sank, and though I had no reason to connect the sounds to Boyd, the moment the fire truck passed me by, I knew I’d never see my friend alive again.

My heart grew heavier with each step as I drew nearer to the café, and as I walked in the ebbing snow fall, I tried to brace myself for what I knew was inevitable, but what I saw when I arrived was beyond even my imagination.

There were three rings of onlookers.  The outside ring consisted of passersby who had not properly comprehended what they were seeing.  This group believed they were witnessing a new type of mime performance, and most wandered off before realizing the act had ended—permanently.  (As each small group of the outer ring walked away, it was replaced by a new wave of passersby.)  The middle ring was transitional in nature.  Those who had once been in the outside ring but who had recognized what had happened pressed forward into the center.  They were joined by those who had been closest to the tragedy by virtue of chance, and who—realizing a death was afoot—had pressed back and away from the deceased.

The inner ring was a hub of activity.  Firefighters and paramedics seemed to be buzzing around like insects, and the few civilians who remained there appeared to be moving about trying to do whatever they could to help as well.  But there was nothing to be done.  In the middle of it all was Boyd Robertson.  Enclosed in a clear box not unlike a telephone booth, the mime remained motionless.  He was fixed in a position between standing and crouching, the lower part of his body obscured by the condensation that had built up within the enclosure.  One white-gloved palm remained pressed against the glass as if still searching for a means of escape.

I considered what to do—to what degree to get involved, but I feared repercussions should I be discovered as the one person who’d known Boyd’s secret.  There was nothing more I could do for him—the man and the mime were both gone.  With a final glance, I turned around the way I had come, and I headed home.

THE END

Shawn Hansen is busy writing more stuff.