Short-short story for NPR

NPR is running its three minute contest again, the guideline being that someone enters town and someone leaves it, in under 600 words. So I wrote the story below. It's not as good as the last one I tried, but you never know what the judges will like.

Meanwhile, I hear that orders for Honor's Paradox at this point are nearly twice those for BiB. That bodes well. I keep hoping that someday I will break through to a much wider audience. That will probably never happen, though. At least I know that the readers I do have are a dedicated crew, a fact which I greatly appreciate.

Send In the Clown

Dwight Purdy was nearly home when he saw the clown standing by the ramp to the interstate with a thumb out.
It was the clown's smile that almost caused Dwight to have an accident. Could anyone's mouth really be that wide, upturned that far at the corners? Even against the chalk white face, it didn't look like grease paint. It looked as if the clown was genuinely happy.
Other details only struck Dwight afterward – the fringe of bright red hair, the bulbous nose, the over-sized suit, the enormous floppy shoes.
When he looked in his rearview mirror, the clown was gone.
I should have picked him up, he thought. I should have run away to join the circus when I was a boy.
Mrs. Purdy met him at the door.
"I've had the dog put down," she said in that abrupt, harsh voice that meant she felt seriously put upon.
"Rusty?"
He looked for the golden shadow that had greeted him, tail wagging, for the last fifteen years.
"He was old and smelly," said Mrs. Purdy. "He left hair all over the furniture. You never think about anyone but yourself."
Rusty, Dusty, Rover, and Runt, stretching back to his boyhood. All gone.
"When is dinner?" he asked.
She followed him into the immaculate dining room. "Never mind that. Did you finally get up the nerve to ask your boss for that raise?"
He sat down at the bare table, feeling himself shrink inside his clothes. Sooner or later, he would have to tell her. Miserably, he fingered his nose and the pimple on its tip that made it feel red and swollen.
"About my job. I lost it three weeks ago."
Mrs. Purdy stared at him. "Then where have you been all this time?"
"Driving around the countryside, looking for … something."
"What about the mortgage? Don't you care what happens to this house, to me? Oh, you are so selfish!" She grabbed her purse. "I'm going home to mother."
"Your mother died years ago."
"Then I'll visit the cemetery."
The door slammed. A moment later he heard the car leave on squealing tires.
No dog, no job, no wife and, soon, no home.
But had this house ever truly been that? He looked around at Mrs. Purdy's knickknacks, her drapes, her precious, dog-hair-free furniture. What more was he than another of her possessions, less cared for than most? Nothing would change if he walked out the door and never came back.
Well, why not? For weeks the open road had called to him. All he had needed was a destination.
Dwight left the house and hurried toward the interstate to thumb a ride out of town. The wind stirred his fading ginger fringe of hair and his enormous, floppy shoes slapped against the pavement. He couldn't stop smiling.
Somewhere, a circus waited for him.