"Her Laugh (Killing Joke)"

'Cachinnator' was the word of the day one time on Dictionary.com so I wrote a story about it.

Perhaps it is my contrarian streak, but hearing laughter inspires in me near total mental collapse. I find the nature of cachinnators to be capricious and disconcerting. Every time a prospective chortler opens their mouth to release a guffaw or cackle, as if it were imprisoned inside them, I want to yell “Stop!” Have they no concern about the consequences of their actions or how others around them may react to their belly-laughs? No, they think not of my plight or of others like me at all.

This may be a surprise, but there are indeed many of us. We have meetings, local chapters, national conventions. There are critical inquiries into why we disdain such common practice, and defining the “what”: do we despise the laugh itself or the buffoon of the laugh's origin? Some write these notions off as futile or meaningless even if answered. They'd rather live their lives as they are, accepting the fate they've been dealt, and never be able to be one of the buffoons themselves. But I, and others like me, well, there's no hiding it: we want to laugh.

Long ago, some of us recognized that our hate and anxiety, like many forms of hate and anxiety, had root in other emotions. For example, it could be misdirected anger. It could be fear. But fear of laughter, that notion is almost absurd. No, our hate manifested itself in the realm of jealousy.

We want to laugh.

And some of us, well, we're old enough to remember how we used to laugh.

But there was what is sometimes referred to as a paradigm shift. How that shift relates to our history is simple to define: our comedians stopped being funny. They became philosophers or moved into dramatic roles. Some even became politicians, which used to be the funniest arena of them all. But the problem is, that they were all better at these professions than at comedy. Their years of combating being ridiculed in their youth, turned them into wiser, more fully-rounded adults, prepared to respond to the bullying of others, quick to think on their feet, and rich in experience that developed unprecedented wisdom in American culture. The United States had drifted for some time, but the comedians sacrificed their humor to lower the unemployment rate, retain top economic status, reduce crime in our urban areas, and to put it bluntly, make America great again.

Now, decades have gone by and not so much as a snicker has escaped my lips. I can't remember how I sounded when I laughed. Whether it was a deep roar or sniveling nose-laugh. A banshee screech or lethargic series of ha...ha...has. No, there is only one laugh worth remembering, and I couldn't waste the space on myself.

Her laugh. It's her ghost. She haunts me from within. I can so easily hear her laugh, and it breaks me down to hear anything close to resembling it. Even then, it's never nearly her. Her laugh was something else. Delicate but comforting, like it could hold the weight of my fear and anxieties. It was sometimes capped off with a subtle moan, so inauspicious I felt like no one could hear it but me, like it was a secret she said aloud that only I could decipher.

Some nights, I go absolutely crazy thinking about this laugh. I imagine how easy it would be to release this ghost, open my mouth, cry from my eyes with such excitement, from finally being able to laugh. But knowing how I react when other people laugh, I know it will be my demise. I'll start twitching and convulsing. Drool will slide from my mouth, and eventually vomit, which I may or may not choke on. My vision will blur into a checkerboard pattern of inconsistent colors. Greens, yellows, reds, pinks. The laughter will morph with hallucinatory wails and images of nails puncturing my flesh will enter my head. And to save myself time from the inevitable combustion of my body, I make those images a reality, finding the sharpest blade I can find and jamming it into my heart. With the final seconds of consciousness, in insurmountable pain, I will scream “Why? Why?” why does this ghost torment me, why did it imprison me, and why does it decree I release it now? Why? Why? Why Why Why?

A: To get to the other side.