Contains: Food TF, Clowns, Hot dogs and Mechanisms



It looked as though the pre show was wrapping up by the time Daniel wandered into the dark circus tent. The diminutive, ginger-haired man had made his way through a tumultuous fairground to reach the looming big top, admittedly drawn by the steady current of fairgoers through the midway. The interior was vast, bordered by rows of tiered seating that sloped towards a brightly coloured stage in the round. The platform was painted to resemble a vast, sunset-hued starburst. Dan awkwardly shuffled and maneuvered around the shadowy faces of strangers until he eventually found an empty seat. It was slightly closer to the stage than he would have liked, which caused him to shift his coat into his lap. The more of a chore it seemed to stand up meant the less of a chance he’d be interacted with by a performer.

Dan had been hoping to see some sort of acrobatics display to start the show, but as the music began to swell and the stage lights brightened, he steeled himself for what would pass for this show's attempt at humour. A variety of colourfully dressed characters began to file onstage, whirling ribbons, fumbling with comically oversized props or getting into loud, garish exchanges in a made-up, gibberish language. Not all of them were human. It must have been one of those ethical circuses that replaced trained animals with anthropomorphic performers. Large , upright elephants picked their way amongst their smaller compatriots, waving with both hands and their trunks to the crowd. A tiger in bedazzled tights did little somersaults, tumbling between two clowns fighting over a chain of linked scarves that was perpetually pouring out of their sleeves. One glum-looking clown spent a solid minute attempting to squeeze an overstuffed suitcase closed until it finally exploded open to release a cluster of multicoloured balloons, which several others attempted to catch with oversized butterfly nets. Daniel winced at the shenaniganry.

Gradually, the riotous colours of the performers filtered away, some tumbling into trapdoors while others were carried upwards into the darkened rafters by nets full of balloons. Eventually, a single, stark figure stood alone on the stage. While every other clown wore a vivid rainbow across their bodies, his baggy outfit was sharply monochrome. Black and white checks covered the flowing fabric and hat, which blurred the performer's dimensions and made it difficult to gauge his size and movements. Dan was so caught up in the clown’s outfit, he had to take a second to register the voluminous, similarly colorless tail curling in the air behind him, and the glowing eyes staring out from a snouted face that seemed to be painted in shadows. His mouth cracked into a crescent moon grin that gave Dan a shiver. The character stood in such stark contrast to his surroundings that Daniel was unsure if he was about to perform a comedy sketch or start belting out opera.

“Welcome, one and all, to the oddest show on Earth!” The clown declared, his voice carrying throughout the big top. “We have a delightful show of daring and grace, laughter and squeals, strange and unusual! My friends and I will-”

The clown made a great show of doing a double take over his shoulder, as if just noticing for the first time that he was alone onstage. There was a slight ripple of laughter from the audience.

“I’m alone!” the gesturing shade scratched his head, causing the bells mounted on its extremities to jingle discordantly. “It’ll be hard to hold down this great big stage all on my own…”

On cue, one side of the large starburst pattern covering the floor began to roll up on itself like the edge of an unsecured map. The shade dove for it with a yelp, flattening the floor back down with his body while his tail flicked through the air like a wisp of smoke. More laughter.

“I might need some help…” the clown called out, grabbing up handfuls of the stage as it continued to loosen beneath him. It now looked as though the entire platform had been covered in an elaborate tablecloth that was being scooped up by the armful by the struggling shade.

Daniel recognized the telltale signs of a performer looking for an audience volunteer and shrank in his seat. He pretended to busy himself with his coat, fussing with the pockets and keeping his eyes down. With any luck, there was already a plant sitting somewhere around him that would be miraculously spirited onstage.



“It looks like there’s something in here…” Dan heard the clown muse, building up to some kind of reveal.

Just keep your head down… Daniel reminded himself. His eyes remained fixed on his coat.

“There you are!” The clown remarked. Dan felt a sudden lurch as the seat seemed to fall away beneath him and his coat was whipped out of his hands, exposing him to a blinding glare.

The bewildered fairgoer staggered as he suddenly found himself on his feet with no memory of standing up. He raised a hand to his face against the affront of what he recognized as stage lights. A wash of applause and laughter surrounded him as he felt an unfamiliar hand pat him on the shoulder.

“Finally, a co-host!”

Dan flinched in alarm, realizing that he was standing right next to the inky-furred clown and was less than a foot away from that wide, unsettling grin. The bright gleam wasn’t the result of a punishing dental routine, there were no teeth. It was just a blank light that filled his mouth, matching the shine of his eyes.

“I-ah.” Dan felt himself at a sudden loss for words, feeling the sea of invisible eyes on him, watching his every move. “Nice trick…but I wasn’t really-”

“Of course!” The clown clapped at his own head, causing the bells on his cap to jingle again. He reached down to scoop up the rest of the huge cloth that he had miraculously conjured Dan out of and began to bundle it up into his arms. “I haven’t even properly searched you!”



“You- what?” Dan took a step back as the Shade yanked a handheld metal detector out the bundle in his arms, advancing on him like a manically dressed TSA agent. The clown passed the detector across his body, turning and directing him this way and that. Every time the flattened wand passed a little too close to him, it would squeal like a theremin, met with more laughter from the audience. The clown's hands were on him now, raising his arms and directing him. Dan cringed at the intrusive act, but found his every attempt to shuffle away rerouted back to the centre of the stage. Every once in a while the clown would pause, and the audience would inexplicably roar with laughter as he did something outside of Dan’s line of sight.

Finally, the ridiculous routine came to an end as the metal detector spiked while gracing his backside.

“What have you got back there?” the host proclaimed, grabbing at something poking out of Dan’s back pocket.

“I didn’t-” Dan protested just as he felt a shiver all the way up his right leg. In a single movement, the clown had drawn a long, dangerous looking device out of his pocket, practically half his own height. It took a moment for Daniel to acknowledge it as a firearm, a cartoonishly flared blunderbuss.



“Naughty, naughty now!” The shade waved the weapon in Dan’s face. The involuntary co-host nervously backed away from the suddenly armed clown. “I hope you have a permit for this…”

He fiddled with the gun, staring right down the muzzle as he asked “Just what did you load this wi-”

The firearm went off, the loud bang almost being drowned out by another roar of laughter from the crowd. Daniel leapt in alarm, not processing for a second that the blunderbuss had only contained fistfulls of confetti. The air was filled with a rainbow of multi-colored streamers, and the still intact clown made a show of coughing up mouthfuls of colourful paper.

“Can I go now?” Dan inquired with the hint of desperation in his voice.

The Shade spat out a coil of silly string with an illustrative “Ptooie” and shrugged with non-commitment. Dan turned away and tried to guess at which general direction his seat was supposed to be. Without the colourful overlay, the circular stage had been replaced with a mostly white surface, traced with dark, horizontal lines.



“Huh, I didn’t take you for a Cancer…” The clown mused behind Dan’s back.

Dan turned his head in irritation, his eyebrows rising as he saw the shade standing on a small platform, holding a wallet and going through the ID. It was his wallet, Dan realized with a quick pat down. How and when could he have gotten that?

There was another stir of laughter from the crowd as Dan stormed back, holding out his hand with frustration. What kind of act was this?

The clown shrugged and passed the wallet back down to Daniel, who turned to leave again. He hadn’t made it ten steps before he heard a phone go off. The ringtone was dreadfully familiar. He patted at his pockets again and winced, turning back around to see the clown holding his smartphone.

“Want me to take it?” The Shade asked gamely. “I think it’s your doctor…”

More laughter. The platform the clown was standing on had continued to rise into the air, the parallel lines on the stage marking changes in elevation to create a gradually lengthening staircase between Daniel and the clown. Daniel huffed as he mounted the steps, determined to reclaim everything he could from the pickpocketing harlequin.

Again, the clown handed back the purloined phone without a fuss. Dan turned to go, noticing that he and his antagonizer were now standing on the top of a very significant flight of wide stairs.

“Anything else?” Dan asked imploringly.

The Clown patted at his baggy costume and presented his open hands. “I think that’s it.”

Dan turned to dismount the stairs, when there was the jingle of metal behind him. “Oh, I almost forgot!”

Dan swivelled in place again, and saw the Shade holding a long strip of leather capped by a buckle with a triumphant grin on his face.

With flawless timing, Dan’s pants slipped from his waist and were down by his ankles. Impulsively, he tried to step forward, entangling his feet in his loose trousers to another roar of laughter from the crowd. His entire centre of gravity lurched as his arms flailed, and then he was falling.

The hard edges of the staircase rushed up to meet him, but the white steps suddenly inflated like deploying airbags. Dan bounced off the abruptly rounded incline, which now resembled a row of tightly stacked cylinders. He attempted to catch himself, but came face down again on the cushioned surface when a sharp tug around his ankles arrested his momentum. Daniel blinked past the laughter of the crowd and struggled to push himself up off the uneven surface. Looking over his shoulder, the rapidly blushing volunteer saw that his pants had been snagged in the crevasse between two cylinders. As he kicked to free himself, his pants came off completely and he was seized by gravity again, rolling another few feet before his sweater and shirt were similarly snagged in another crevice. As Dan struggled, desperately trying to block out the cheers, he felt the fabric being pulled away from him. His feet struggled to find purchase and he realized that the cylinders were rotating underneath him. His entire sweater was tugged off of his head, and his shirt followed quickly after, sucked into the rollers like a hungry paper shredder. Reduced to his underwear, Dan awkwardly rolled down another tier on the seemingly endless ramp of rotating cylinders. Every attempt to find purchase and push himself up was met with failure, as the surfaces beneath him grew slick with something. Was it grease? Whatever it was, it filled the air with an oily, salty smell and began to coat his exposed body as he was rolled along his side.

Desperately, Dan craned his head to find the clown again. The smirking shade was walking down a narrow section of the incline that had remained angular stairs, but were similarly in upward motion like an escalator. He was taking the steps one at a time to stay right next to his greasy volunteer.

“A little quick on the dismount!” The clown called out. “This must be why you usually prefer suspenders!”

Daniel found his own rotations coupled with keeping his eye on the moving Shade nightmarishly disorienting. He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to center himself, and realized that the rollers beneath him were beginning to grow warm. Already the overhead stage lights felt as though they were baking him, but now this lunatic device was actually getting hotter and hotter. The heat and smell reminded him uncomfortably of a taxing summer job as a fry cook.

Daniel tried to move again. Maybe if he could just worm his way close to an edge, he could pull himself onto stable ground. His limbs felt hard to move, and Dan looked down to take in another development. The grease coating his body had…congealed into a thin, solid layer of laminate across his skin, binding his arms and legs to his body. He gawked and attempted to move again, wriggling his entire bound mass towards the Clown, any vocal protestations he had were drowned out by another roar of laughter from the crowd. He focused on the path forward, feeling his body grow ever harder to bend with every rotation. The coating, and his skin beneath it, was growing slippery and shiny. He struggled to angle his head to look down at himself, and could see that his normally fair skin had developed a reddish blush, like a bad sunburn. For the moment, at least, he felt no pain. There was just a constant sense of pressure as the casing felt as though it was cinching tighter against him. His dimensions were beginning to smooth out and become uniform, robbing him of more mobility by the second. The rollers felt like they were shaping him, the heat that emanated from them making him pliable and easier to shape into this rudimentary…sausage. 

As he continued to roll over and over, his insides felt fuller and fuller, pushing at his tightening skin. It was a dense, mealy texture that filled his mouth with the taste of salty grease and nitrates. The sensation was utterly alien and bizarrely enticing. He felt thick and taut, swollen with meat and juices, begging for the release that was being denied by his thin but resilient casing. With a sudden surge of growth, his neck stiffened and the flavour somehow seeped out of his mouth and into his entire head. Dan felt his throat make contact with the rollers at the same time as his chest and thighs, and let out a nearly silenced moan at the thought of his entire form taking on the same diameter. The last sight he got of his body was of scorched-red skin that glistened with oils, before his head was forced into an upward facing position, drawing his narrowing gaze back onto the expectant Shade.

“That’s quite the shape you’ve taken on there…” The clown made a show of fanning his collar. “Any repressed thoughts boiling up to the surface about now? Maybe you’d like to talk to me about your relationship to your mother?”

Dan wanted to tell the clown to shut up, or at least correct him on his use of outdated psych theory, but his lips felt stretched tight against his face, and impossible to open. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pressure that had pervaded his entire body and now was pushing his head and toes into shape.

 He tried to move again, squirming ever closer to escape. He gazed imploringly into the white, blank eyes of the Shade.

“Whoop, runaway dog.” The Shade smiled, bending over to grab Daniel’s warping head in both hands, lifting his front end upwards. Dan’s body arched in a way that the presence of a spine would not permit as he came face to face with that wide grin.

“Nuh-not…hot…hot…” The tube of meat attempted to spit out of his stretched thin mouth. “Let..me..”



“I’ve had worse audience volunteers...” The Shade spoke in a lower voice, directly to his quarry. “You’ve done well so far, but it’s not like we can prop you back in your seat at this point. It’s frankly unsanitary. I suggest you play along and enjoy yourself.”

Any further protests were impossible as the clown laid his hot dog back on the rollers. He prodded Dan between the eyes, effortlessly sliding his slicked up body back into position in the center of the machine and undoing his work in an instant. The sensation of greasily sliding along the hot surface tickled the dog in a way that scrambled his thoughts and made him shiver anew.

“Can’t serve you up until you’re done!” The clown jingled gamely as he stripped off his grease-stained gloves to reveal a spotless pair underneath. “We’ve got health and safety to consider!”

The cooking sausage struggled to deny what his captor and his own thoughts were telling him, but it was all too overpowering. He could feel the natural lines of his face deepen and furrow into a starburst of creases that radiated out from a central point where his nose used to be. Something similar felt as though it was happening in between his feet, unifying him at both ends.



Daniel attempted to moan, but the noise escaped him as a thin whine of escaping oils. He had become the exact size and shape of the hot rollers he’d been trapped by, uniform in colour and texture and unrecognizable as a person. Each end of his length was capped with an indistinct dome.

“Hot DOG!” The clown exclaimed. “It looks like we’ve got an order up!”



The rollers beneath the slim sausage finally ground to a halt, and the heat from below faded away. Still, Dan’s own internal temperature continued to radiate throughout him, causing the grease on his body to bubble and hiss. He felt like a kettle that was desperate to let off a blast of steam.

“Still…” The clown continued. “This is a family show, so we’re going to have to cover up that weiner before we start getting letters. Would you care to do the honours?”



The sizzling hot dog forced one of his eyes open to try and see who his captor was talking to. Off the platform and near the edge of the stage, a coyote in a striped vest and straw hat was waving back to him. The new face hunched over an elaborate console of dials and switches, and a loud mechanical rattle filled the tent. Dan watched with trepidation as a small door opened on the circumference of the stage and a large, hefty robotic arm extended towards the canopy, tipped with a long, clean wooden dowel. It angled itself downwards with alarmingly mechanical swiftness, adjusting and bending in order to point the tip of the stick directly at what Dan used to call his face. His other eye opened in alarm to stare down the full length of the wooden rod, dreading what was to come next.



The clown glanced over his shoulder and shared a look with the coyote. The newcomer smirked and tapped a button, causing the arm to suddenly swing away on a track, circling the stage and the oversized hotdog like a hungry shark. The sausage lost sight of it almost instantly, silently hoping it had been dismissed. Then he felt something prodding at his posterior end. He barely had a moment to recalculate before the smooth stick thrust itself into him, sliding almost effortlessly into his homogenous, meaty interior. His entire body stiffened as the stick replaced his faded skeletal structure, and his eyes clamped shut at the violently ecstatic sensation of being so aggressively invaded. So much for being a family show.

There was another mechanical clunk, and the entire arm swung up into the air, carrying the impaled hot dog with it. Dan wanted to squirm and wriggle at being entirely supported and lifted by the stick that was practically knocking at the back of his eyeballs, but any hint of muscle had been absorbed by the well-cooked protein mass his body had become. All he could do was hang there under the stage lights, on full display, feeling the tiny rivulets of grease trickle down the length of his upright body and drip away.

“As a happy representative of KoyoteKorp.” The new voice called out. “It is my delight to show off this revolutionary approach to automated enhanced foodstuffs! Based on our fondue dunk tank technology, the Batterblaster is the most efficient use of giant food on the market!”



“Try to keep it short.” The clown chided his co-host. “We’re already way over the word count.”

“Fine.” The coyote huffed. “Let’s let the product speak for itself!”

The arm jerked into motion again, pulling a squeal out of the dog as he was angled slightly downwards. The blanket of rollers that had smoothed and cooked him lay below, but the entire stage was shifting in place, rotating like a trapdoor. Even the Shade looked caught off guard, stumbling and toppling off of his platform in a cluster of jingling bells as the greased rollers were swapped out for what looked like a backyard swimming pool divided into two even segments. There was the rattle of hydraulic pressure and several ports on both sides of the reservoir began to jet out fluid that filled each respective side. One began to fill with a thick, yellowish substance and the other steamed with roiling amber liquid. Dan could feel the heat coming off of the second tank against his exposed flesh, but it seemed like he was being angled to the first tub. The gooey, corn-smelling fluid grew wider in his vision as he dipped closer and closer to its unbroken surface. Dan let his eyes fall shut as he finally made contact, the entirety of his length plunging into the viscous batter that clung to his new, greasy skin. He felt the stick inside of him twist and roll his body, the torsion pushing against the resistance of the thick batter and scrambling his perceptions all the more. It was cool and pillowy against his skin, soothing, in a strange way. It was a balm to his scorched-red casing and settled his frayed nerves.

Then, the stick jerked upwards again and the freshly dunked hot dog felt the drag of the batter as it hesitated to release him. Part of him wished that he could just stay in the tub, lose himself in the gooey weightlessness, but the machine had other plans. Finally, his immense length was pulled free of the batter bath and he was swung upwards, yellow gobbets of liquid dripping off of him and back into the vat, then he swung away and was treated to the familiar sense of heat from below. The hot dog tensed, realizing at last what his final state would be. A few more drips of batter fell, hitting the roiling oil far below and sizzling as they were cooked through in an instant. Then, the arm seemed to just lose all its strength and drop the batter-coated dog directly into the steaming oil.

The hot dog was so prepared for searing agony that the alternative was just as shocking. The hot oil against his basted body was overwhelming, but it was raw stimulation over pain. He wanted to writhe again, as his entire body was cooked through, making him internally sweat delicious juices that he could practically taste throughout himself. The batter coating him bubbled in the oil bath, rapidly solidifying into mealy breading and absorbing the dogs juices. The hot dog could even sense the very outer layer of its coating hardening into a crisp outer shell. Then the arm holding it under the oil’s surface swivelled again, rotating the dog to ensure a perfect golden-brown colour across its surface.

After an eternity beneath the oil, the arm jerked upwards once more, completing the unorthodox baptism. Steaming and crisp, still glistening with flavourful grease, the massive corn dog was finally done.

“Now that’s one for the record books!” The clown cheered as the audience burst into applause.

The corndog was reeling in the final culmination of its preparation. It could feel its hot, tender skin pressed in on all sides by the thick, moist cornbread and even the crispy outer skin which felt fresh and begging to be cracked like an egg. It swung again, and was finally laid down. The surface beneath it felt smooth and fibrous. Then the dog quivered as best it could as there was aloud mechanical sound and it felt a thick, cool substance tickle its way down the corn dog’s length in wide, painterly strokes. The smell of concentrated tomatoes seeped down to it, then a second line was drawn down it alongside a tart sharp smell. The corndog realized it had just been decorated with condiments, twin, generous drizzles of ketchup and mustard.

“The Batterblaster churns out another delectable masterpiece!” The KoyoteKorp representative proudly declared. “Please pick up a pamphlet and check our booth when you leave!”

“Now, I know that everyone is fighting the urge to rush the stage and have a bite…” The clown warned. “But I’m afraid that this delectable snack is already spoken for…”



The ground shook beneath the corn dog. By some small mercy, a tiny sliver of its tip wasn’t buried under hot breading and had been left exposed to the open air. The dog wasn’t sure if it even had eyes to still open, but could still see through a narrow cone of vision if it focused. The rumbling grew louder and heavier, and suddenly the entire floor seemed to buckle and lift like a cloth. The corndog realized it had been resting on a huge paper plate, which was now in the hands of a similarly massive creature. Its vision swam as it was lifted from the plate, and it made out the hungry face, ears and trunk of one of the elephants he had seen earlier, back when he was just a member of the audience. It’s trunk extended like a python, sniffing at him with obvious gluttony, and the pachyderm’s mouth opened wide.

Right. It was one of those ethical circuses…