Coulrophobia

Sylvie Brett was aware of a soft humming sound, it took her a minute to realize it was her. Then she realized her eyes were closed, where was she? What happened? As she slowly forced her eyes open she realized she had a pounding headache, and her stomach matched. Right away she recognized the sterile environment of a hospital exam room, where she was currently laying on a bed. What was going on? She groaned softly as she tried to sit up.

The door slid open and Matt Casey stepped in.

"Sylvie? April called Severide and told him you were here, are you okay?"

"Uh..." she squeezed her eyes shut to block out the blinding light before trying to get up again, "Yeah, yeah, I think so."

"The doctor said you passed out shortly after dropping off your patient," he said, "do you remember what happened?"

She tried to think. Did she remember?

A whining groan slipped past her lips as it started to come back to her. She slid back down on the bed and pulled the sheet up over her, "Yeah, I remember...and I wish I didn't."

"What happened?" Casey asked.

She pulled the sheet up over her head and wanted to block it all out, but she couldn't, embarrassing as it was. After a few seconds, she pushed the sheet down and started to sit up.

"I..." she sighed, "you know that I absolutely don't do clowns, right?"

Casey nodded, everybody at 51 knew that after a call on Halloween a few years back.

"I got the paperwork filled out and we were getting ready to leave, when the elevator opened and..." she breathed hard and fast like she was going to hyperventilate, "All, of these, clowns, came out...and I just...I just..." she forced herself to take a deeper breath and explained, "they were coming down from the pediatric ward..." she groaned again and hit her head back against the pillow, "This is so embarrassing."

Casey was his usual self of not offering much support other than his actual presence, since he wasn't sure what to say and didn't want to risk saying the wrong thing.

"There are times I know when to expect this," Sylvie explained, "Halloween...if the circus comes to town, that's fair warning...but stuff like this...or we get called to a kids' birthday party...I never know when it's going to come up, and...I, just can't, deal with it."

Casey finally spoke and told her, "The doctor's releasing you but he wants you to go straight home, you have a minor concussion from hitting your head on the floor."

The blonde woman shook her head, and immediately regretted it, as she tried to push through, and insisted as she got to her feet, "No, I'm fine, I'm ready to go back to work, I can do this..."

"Boden won't let you, and you know it."

Sylvie sighed and looked down at her shoes. After a minute she picked her head up and looked at Casey and said, "I always knew I was different...but it never really occurred to me before that something's wrong with me."

"What do you mean?" Matt asked.

"Well it must be...those kids in the hospital aren't scared of clowns, but I am, what does that say about me?" she asked.

"You're not exactly alone you know," Casey said. "A lot of people don't do clowns."

"There's a difference in 'not doing them', and..." the very thought of it had her breathing rapidly again and about to hyperventilate.

"Come on," Matt told her, "we'll get you discharged and I'll drive you back home."

Sylvie pressed her back against the wall and let out a long, ear splitting scream that would've fit perfectly in any horror movie. Matt Casey stood a couple feet away from her, his face twisted in a grimace of agony as he about went deaf hearing it.

When Sylvie finally stopped screaming and instead started gasping for air, Casey took the opportunity to say calmly, despite how frazzled his own nerves currently felt, "Okay...I'd say that's an improvement...you're still in the room, and you didn't throw up."

Sylvie looked at the clown doll with red hair, a red nose, a big painted on grin and eyes, dressed in a ringmaster's outfit, standing on her couch propped against the pillows and felt her chest heaving. "I don't think I can do this, I can't, I can't..."

She'd asked Casey to try and help her find some way to finally work past this phobia of hers, because she knew he wouldn't bust her balls about it like the others at 51 would. He wasn't sure what good he'd be but he agreed to try and help. They'd come to the same conclusion it would be best to start with something small and inanimate that couldn't be perceived as much of a threat, but apparently even this wasn't working.

"Alright, alright," Casey said calmly, "I'll get rid of it." He grabbed the doll by one fabric hand, put it in his toolbox and snapped it shut. "See? It's gone."

Sylvie heaved in a long, hard breath and slowly exhaled it back out as she tried to calm down.

"I don't think it's working, Casey, I don't think I can get past this," she said hopelessly as she sat down on the couch.

"Can I ask you a question?" Matt asked. "Granted, I know Stephen King and John Wayne Gacy haven't helped matters any, but exactly when did you start being afraid of clowns?"

Sylvie shook her head, "I don't remember...I'm tempted to say all of my life but that's not really true, I know because I used to have this clown night light in my bedroom when I was like 2 or 3...and it didn't bother me...when I was about 6, one of the girls in my neighborhood was all excited because her parents were going to bring her to Chicago to see 'The Bozo Show' live...she was hoping they'd pick her to play the Grand Prize game, do you remember that?"

Casey nodded, faintly, "Yeah, you win a prize for every ping pong ball you toss in a bucket."

"She was thrilled...every kid on the block wanted to be on that show...when it used to come on TV, I'd run off and hide under my bed. I didn't know why, but that was when I first knew that I...was scared of clowns. And it just got worse, in the second grade I was at a friend's birthday party and after the cake, her parents took us all outside in the back yard and this clown came out to perform...my dad had to come get me because I wouldn't stop screaming. That's when everyone at school found out...and that made my life hell clear up to graduation."

Casey made a sympathetic sound in his throat and told her, "Sorry to hear that, I know, school's hell, the people you think are your 'friends'...when they find your weakness, they jump on it."

"I couldn't figure it out, you know?" Sylvie asked. "I'd look at all of them and wonder why they couldn't see what I saw...why weren't any of them freaking out too? I mean we were all looking at the same guy in this freaky makeup who just looked...like something straight out of hell...why weren't any of them afraid? And then over the years I realized it wasn't all of them, it was me...that something was wrong with me."

"I wouldn't say that," Matt responded.

Sylvie felt a need to repeat, "Those kids in the hospital aren't scared of clowns...so why am I?"

"90% of those kids would be scared to death of corn snakes, you're not," Casey pointed out.

She didn't look convinced. "Snakes are easier to figure out why everyone's afraid of them, they bite, they squeeze, they're poisonous, and nobody trusts anything that can move that fast with no legs."

Casey chuckled.

"So...what is it about clowns?" Sylvie asked. "For crying out loud, they're not even real, so why are they so scary?"

Matt shrugged, and offered his own two cents, "I've never been particularly fond of them either. When I was 8, I was invited to this birthday party, some kid in my class, we never hung out or anything, but his mom made him invite the whole class...they hired a clown to entertain the kids...and he was so smug and so annoying...I just wanted to punch his lights out the whole time I was there."

Sylvie laughed. "Did you?"

"Well," Casey said knowingly, "not exactly but I did throw a piece of cake at him, just missed him. I tried to convince my parents it was an accident...my dad didn't buy it."

"Oh," Sylvie replied in understanding.

"Trust me, you're not alone, a lot of people don't like clowns," Casey said.

"Yeah, but this can't keep happening on the job," Sylvie replied. "Maybe I should try hypnosis."

Casey blinked, "You think that'd work?"

"I don't know," she said, "but at this rate I'd be willing to try almost anything."