Steampunk Stories (Blog Prompt #6)

In The God Clown Is Near, by Jay Lake, the author tells the dark tale of a man named Doctor Cosimo Ferrante. He is a flesh sculptor, or builder of people. One day, he is approached by two men, the Sueno brothers, and is instructed to build a clown. This is an ordinary request for Ferrante until the brothers detail that they want him to construct a moral clown … one with horrendous strength and mental capacity. He shudders at the prospect of doing such a thing, but when he is threatened with his life, he can do nothing but comply.
At that point, Ferrante deals with a horrible moral struggle as he constructs the monstrous creature. His friend and lover Jack guides him and advises him throughout the story. He suggests that he should continue the design, but build it with a flaw. Ferrante then takes the brain of a goat and patterns the clown’s brain after that. When the brothers Sueno arrive once more to see the completed creature, Ferrante awakens it and, in a panic, it rushes out of the room, killing one of the brothers and knocking the other unconscious. While the other brother is unconscious, Ferrante cleverly slips a bubble of carbon into his carotid artery, killing him as well. He is absolved from his horrible duty, the brothers being dead, and is able to return to his normal work in the Dark Towns.
This story takes on a similar theme to Frankenstein, but instead of desiring to build the monster, Ferrante is forced into it against his will. The theme of ambition by the creator is replaced by the theme of the ambitions of one person being forced upon another. I found this theme a particularly unique one throughout the story.