“I know you’re staring at me, I can feel your eyes on me.”

Her eyes snapped open and the harsh light pierced her eyes as the dream was still fresh in her mind. There it was, sitting innocently on the window sill, the manic face laughing at her, mocking her. Circus time in clown land she thought, the red rage seeping down her body, screaming out of her brain, out of her eyes as dream and reality mixed into a multicoloured nightmare. She leapt out of bed like a released spring, her fists clenched fast by her sides.

“You were there weren’t you, you fucking bastard!” she spat the words out, each one tasting acidic in her mouth. “Couldn’t leave me alone, could you? Twisted, that’s what it is, picking on a poor little girl and making everyone laugh at her!”

She grabbed the doll off the ledge, its limp body hanging in her hands. She slapped it hard, its eyes rolling around its cold, ceramic head. Sanity held on by a thread in her mind, fraying by the second, yet still the clown was laughing at her.

“I’m gonna make you pay, you bloody madman!” With a snap, the thread finally gave way and the clown’s head lay on the floor, the gore of stuffing spilling from its guts.

She breathed hard holding onto the bed, her head spinning. She longed to climb back into the warm womb of the duvet. No one could hurt her there. Yet the old memory flickered around her mind like a black and white film, imaged fuzzy yet there, teasing her. She couldn’t ignore it and she knew her work wasn’t done just ye. Who was it that had taken her to that hellhole? That had sat through her humiliation, laughing so hard that tears had rolled down her cheeks like blood. Her mother, the bitch. Her creator had conspired with those jesters of Satan to make a fool of her. She couldn’t allow her to get away with that, allow her to go unpunished. She glanced down at the clown who, despite the decapitation, still had a rose tinted smile on its face. With a scream of fury she picked it up and hurled it at the mirror. Shards of glass and cold porcelain rained over her as the clown’s head smashed, fragmenting her mind completely. Like a wild beast she picked up a large slither of glass and made for the door.

Easing open the door to her mother’s room she crept in, the milky orb of the moon bathing the area in an eerie glow. There lay the traitor, sleeping like an innocent child. The blood pounded in her ears, yet she felt calmer than the wind on a warm summer’s day, her mind resting softly in its new jolted state. Clutching the jagged ice of glass in her hand, she towered over the witch, waiting. As it stirred in its sleep she climbed on top of it, clamping her hand over the mouth. The eyes flew open, wide with a combination of terror and surprise at the familiar stranger.

“Well well, we have been a naughty girl, haven’t we?” Amy grinned, her eyes bulging from her skull. “And we know what happens to naughty girls, don’t we? I have to punish you; you can’t be forgiven for what you’ve done to me!” The knife of glass plunged into her mother’s throat, a muffled scream escaping from the clamped hand. A shower of blood emitted from the wound, soaking Amy’s skin. Calmness prevailed, the job was done.

She was found a couple of hours later by her brother. Walking into the room he took in the scene of his sister rocking from side to side as she softly hummed music from The Big Top, his mother’s blood-soaked body lying at her feet.

“What the fuck…?”

She slowly raised her eyes to meet his. “I’ve done nothing wrong”, her voice feather soft, tickling his ears. “She was evil, twisted. All I did was clean the world of filth. You don’t know. You don’t know anything! I had no choice!” She made as to embrace him, her body shaking with fright. What would he do? Surely he wouldn’t betray his own flesh and blood?


Ann Murphy was sectioned under the Mental Health Act 1983. She was sent to Roehouse Institution where she was put into solitary confinement for her own and other’s safety. To date, there are no plans to release her back into society.