LAUGH

DEAD ON SIX O’CLOCK. Sentries stand in two straight, parallel lines, sporting the logo of the Taurus government – the Blue Bull – over the place where their hearts should be. Rain chants and thunder claps. The weather’s pulsating, war-inspiring song provides the Sentries with the single-minded determination needed to complete their work. They snap to attention, saluting sharply to the Tauritsar. Black leather gloves reach for cold metal rifles.

The butt of an assault rifle plunges into the crooked back of a hollow-eyed halfwit in a crimson jumpsuit as he passes between the regimented guards and into the pure, golden light of the Heaven District. To the beat of the rain, each Sentry rams their gun into his spine, like hot obsidian hammers shaping steel into some unholy contortion. The impact propels the labourer down the narrow path to the sterile white doors of the LAUGH THEATRE. Oblivious to these strikes, the worker’s inane grin endures, as if his mind has ascended to some distant, undiscovered country. Thousands of emaciated workers follow; blank smiles on their faces, bones rattling in anticipation for their monthly fix.

One amongst them bares no smile. Hobbling townsman David/32 had done this for half of his pitiful existence. This Stress Exorcism.

Each month, David/32 would fix his sunken, bloodshot eyes – rendered tunnel-like by the dark birthmarks around them – on the stage ahead. He would listen intently to everything said with his misshapen ears, mangled by the hazardous machine he operated each day. His trembling, downturned mouth would twitch as he struggled to keep it shut. When the temptation to sacrifice his integrity for a small taste of bliss overwhelmed him, he would clutch the heart-shaped locket that he discreetly kept beneath his jumpsuit. It had been his great uncle’s once. David/32 wonders if his memory has been corrupted by the Taurites, just as the entire cityscape around him has been twisted and remoulded in their image since the virus and The Great Triumph. If it serves him well, he recalls that his uncle used to be something called a drag queen. ‘Ophelia Payne’ was her stage name. She would wear this locket at her shows as she cast her spell upon the audience, bewitching them with radical politics and raunchy one-liners. It was the last relic from a freer culture, an artefact from a lost world.

Currently, 32 is twenty-nine. Twenty years and thirty-eight days remain until he will outlive his usefulness as a labourer and his life will be terminated by a firing squad. Is there any point of clinging onto a prolonged life if I exist purely to further the goals of a state that doesn’t represent me? he thought. Perhaps if there is no art, no creativity, no genuine joy and freedom of expression in the world, it is better to put one's life on the line in the name of those birth-rights than to suffer in silence and guarantee that another generation of this ailing species will wallow in their own stupidity. How can one be ‘happy’ when the only literature is tainted by Taurus propaganda? How can one be ‘happy’ now that compulsory education is considered ‘unsavoury’? But if I speak out, if my passions explode and I’m terminated sooner than my time, who will be left to preserve the poetry of the past? Who will be left to remember the glorious diversity we once had? I must stand up for myself, but not today. Never today.

It is David/32’s turn. The Sentries at the front of each line press his arms behind his back and slam him head first through the double doors of the LAUGH THEATRE. All he sees are the polished tiles of the hallway as he is led into the steel pen that corresponds with his number. The air is heavy with a lavender fog that he feels is slowly choking the life out of him. He wheezes as his legs and his torso are locked in place, ready for the show to begin.

As the lights go out, the grand atrium of the LAUGH THEATRE erupts into applause. A silhouette is faintly visible through a veil of smoke. It is a vacant hole in reality, a blank void wearing a humanoid form. The golden spotlights shine down upon the empty figure and the entertainer is revealed in all his spectacular glory. Smirking, he struts across the stage, clownishly wobbling his immaculate quiff hairstyle. A bright blue suit; glistening shoes; a plump, well-fed face. He is not one of us. He couldn’t be more unlike us if he tried, thought 32.

His presence alone is enough to make some of the stock squeal. They are hysterical, but he has not yet said a word. The entertainer takes a second to inhale their oily sycophancy. He steps forward and cups his ear, waiting for the flock to be worthy of his sermon. They strain their lungs to meet his gesture, knowing they will never be equal to it. The man on the stage shrugs, then commences his speech.

“I’m McIntosh/2 as you already know. I’m the government approved comedian for this month’s Stress Exorcism. Haha yep, you heard it, that’s my catchphrase. McIntosh/1 was shot for going off script. Isn’t it funny when your family members are heretics and then they’re shot? Anyway, without further ado, Hail the Tauritsar!”

Except for one, every member of the audience howls. “Hail the Tauritsar!”

David/32 looks down at the tray inside his pen where the Stressleave Syringe – ‘an aid to laughter for the impure’ – sits before him like an apple of Eden. Temptation sent by God, the Tauritsar himself, that spells the end of virtue. It feels so easy to give in, to let go of all the values that have burdened me for so long. Why do I persist in this futile resistance? Why do I deny myself the sweet release of laughter?

An inhuman cackle rings out in his right ear. The woman in the pen next to him had impaled her sinewy arm with the needle provided to her. Grinning and convulsing, her agony is thinly veiled beneath the tortured cries. David/32 stares on as the colour drains from her face and her complexion fades to a sickly yellow. Acidic tears carve tracks down her cracked skin.

32 clenches his fist around the heart-shaped pendant once more. No. That will not be me. I can’t let them break me; I can never give them the satisfaction. I owe it to Ophelia. In my teenage years – back when there was a resistance movement, back when there was still hope – I saw her final performance. Before…. Before they took her away. She dazzled us with her expressive make-up; she challenged us with her biting wit; and with her cruel double-entendres, she made us laugh like children. Genuinely laugh – like never before, like never again. Giving up now would tarnish those memories forever. Yes, I owe it to Ophelia.

Unaware of the scrutinising glares from the Sentries up in the balcony, 32 remains stony-faced. The Taurite soldiers shift from foot to foot as they anxiously receive orders from the sentient thunder that rumbles through their minds: the Tauritsar himself.

McIntosh/2’s diatribe continues. “Isn’t it priceless when your child says they want to be a Sentry when they grow up and you know that will never happen because they are not blessed by the Tauritsar? The looks on their faces when you tell them they’ll always be poor. Now, that’s hilarious! In other news, who’s up for audience participation?”

A raucous roar of approval echoes off the diamante patterned walls of the LAUGH THEATRE.

“Taurus art is the only art, yes?”

YES!

“Education was a waste of time and you’re glad Taurus got rid of it, yes?”

YES!

32 thought back to his school days. They had taught him about the amazing feats that human beings were capable of. He had seen paintings that transcended the materials they were made from, awakening his imagination with colour and feeling; he had heard songs that had reached right through his body and touched his soul; he had read works of literature that sent him across the globe and engrossed him in the lives of people he would never meet.

McIntosh snorts. “Alright, one more just for good measure. You will agree with anything I say, yes?”

YES!

I don’t know any human beings anymore.

A dirt-filled tear splatters on the pristine tiles below.

“NO!” said 32, his voice cracking under the weight of his words. “You describe our miserable lives to us every month – without theatre, without wit – and we’re supposed to laugh? People, are we not better than this? Are we really content to see ourselves interpreted by some uncaring entity, spitting at us from above? We grow their food; we manufacture their weapons. We can sustain ourselves. Let us dedicate our lives to making our own art once again!”

Nothing is real. For a moment, 32’s surroundings blur into an indistinct state of disorder.

As he takes deep breaths to regain his composure, reality dawns on him. Everybody had heard his outburst. It had happened – it had really happened today. Turning to face the woman next to him, he sees that her wide-eyed, toothless smile is unchanged.

“Well, that certainly wasn’t the sort of participation we wanted,” said McIntosh, raising an eyebrow, “was it, folks?”

LAUGHS.

“Time we had an interval, methinks,” said McIntosh, subtly gesturing to the Sentries in the wings.

LAUGHS.

The Sentries shepherd the audience out into the foyer, but David/32 is left in place, holding onto Ophelia’s heart for dear life.

After the break, the cattle are locked back into their pens. Among them is a husk, covered in bruises and lacerations. He has a red line around his neck – a friction burn, where something precious has been torn away.

McIntosh makes a mundane comment.

This shadow of a man – with dark birthmarks around his eyes – laughs.

EVERYBODY LAUGHS.