So what's Doug doing in the meantime?

What he really wants to do is direct.

Doug anagrams to Godu, the Clown God. Doug has Higher aspirations.

Oh Deb! Stay with the Krustyesque Clowns of the Apocalypse. Go loony. And Polter-Cow's Doug is too cool.

Dana, that's a good question. What do the Four Whatevers do when the apocalypse has been put in turnaround?

Hmmmm. His name is Sulky, yet he wishes to be Doug.

He rides the White Unicycle

Oh! Deb, have you ever seen Pinkman? He used to ride around Berkeley on a unicycle in a pink lycra bodysuit and a white cape. Marvelous guy.

The clowns are stuck with the apocalypse gig, even though they really want to do Vegas. They think they can compete with Cirque du Soleil and Penn and Teller. The problem is, they occasionally smite members of the audience by accident, so there's war breaking out in the third row and people are running out of the theatre covered in boils.

Hee hee hee. And the audience is always starving.

Congratulations on the invite, by the way! Have you written about clowns before? Any idea why they sought you out for this anthology?

Could one of the clowns be one of those creepy European style Harlequins? That's a Clown of the Apocalypse.

The wife of one of the editors is a fantasy writer, and she pinged me; her husband is a little taken aback by the male-centric collection he's got, and would like a woman writer, so presto et voila, my invite. I'm awaiting guidelines for length, etc, so we shall see. I may suck at this.

Deb, have you ever seen Pinkman?

Woot! Yes, indeed, but I didn't know that was his name. I always think of him as One Wheel Guy. He's totally brilliant, and completely Berkeley.

Could one of the clowns be one of those creepy European style Harlequins?

Ooooh, a sort of Punchinello commedia della arte guy? Crankypants, aka Lorenzo, representing....

Hmmm. This is really wanting to have some dark edges in my head, I think because clowns generally horrify me.

I love this conversation. That is all I can add at the moment, all creative braincells having been sucked out of my head while standing in a school cafeteria lunch line in a futile and depressing attempt to get a container of peach yogurt.

Maybe Sulky got pushed around a lot in school lunch lines. I'm telling you, I'm torn between the desire to put on a big red nose and the desire to end the world, and I don't even do that every day.

shudder