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A Primer for Humor

A Short Story by Dorothy McFalls

2001

“Primer For Humor” has been published in the new literary comedy magazine, Lit Wit in their Spring 2002, volume 1, number 1. Lit Wit publishes poetry, fiction, and essays. And, if I may say so myself, is a great new literary magazine and worth a look.

For subscription information contact:

Lit Wit

Karen Peacock, Editor

5708 Pontiac Street

Berwyn Heights, MD 20740

It’s $12 for a year subscription to the quarterly magazine.

“I love it!” a lone figure shouted from the mists. A strange light illuminated the scene from behind. She stepped forward and came into better view. She was wearing a flowered housedress, shiny and gaudy but extremely comfortable. Her silvered black hair was cropped short and flat against her head. But unlike her hair her eyes were anything but lifeless.

A light flickered in the darkness followed by the swirling of ghostly smoke.

“I came here to watch a show,” the lone audience member complained. He puffed on his cigarette, “to be entertained.”

The woman squinted into the darkness. Bang! The lights flooded the barren stage. She shaded her eyes, but still could not make out the man lurking beyond the platform.

“What it this? There is not even a set.”

“There is not even a script,” the woman’s voice boomed.

The lights faded into a starry sky. Universes and constellations hovered above her.

“Tell me, what did you come to expect?” the woman’s voice asked through the timelessness of the night.

“More,” he grumbled, but his voice had softened, clearly at awe with the vastness of the scene.

“There’s no money back guarantee. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to take what you get.” She laughed. There was no daintiness in the sound, not from a woman brave enough to be dressed in a blue and pink flowered dress that could have served well as a tent.

“Look,” her pointed finger, her hand, her arm white as the stars showed the way.

Stage left. A television snapped on. The cold glow vanquished the stars.

Ice clanked in a glass.

A man, slumped in a battered and well-worn easy chair, held the glass in one hand and a television remote in the other. The man laughed when the laugh track laughed and flipped the channel when a commercial interrupted the show, still laughing when prompted. It did not matter that he had joined the joke mid-scene.

“This show was billed as a comedy. This is pitiful, sad,” the man in the audience complained.

The television watcher laughed at a joke on the tube. It was obvious what he was laughing at because laughter rose from the television set at the same time.

“It’s not sad to him,” the woman said over the crackling hoots filling the auditorium. “I think he finds things extremely funny.”

“Perhaps there is something wrong with you,” a new voice said.

Stage right. A doctor dressed in a white coat and holding a large clipboard appeared. He was bathed in a blue light.

“Perhaps his fluids are out of balance,” the doctor suggested.

The woman joined the doctor’s side. The pinks in her housedress glowed brighter with the dilution of the blue color under the blue light.

“Look here,” the doctor pointed to a table with four vials of brightly colored liquid sitting on top. He bent down and was eye to eye with the liquid. “Hmmm.”

“What is that?” the man in the audience shouted.

“This is interesting.” The doctor tapped the side of one of the vials. The liquid bubbled.

“What is interesting?” the man hollered.

“And look here. I would have never expected to find that,” the doctor said ignoring the heckling.

“Hmmm. Yes, I can see what you are saying,” the woman nodded gravely.

“Tell me! What in the blazes are you two talking about?”

“Well, sir,” the doctor said stiffly. He sounded quite annoyed to have his research disturbed. “It’s your humors. They appear to be quite out of balance.”

“My – my what?”

“Could simply guess that from his attitude,” the woman said and then laughed.

“Hmmm, yes I see that now.” The doctor had not looked up from the vials on the table. “Humors, sir. They are the fluids of life. Four in totality, they create balance. That balance is very important.”

“Does-does this conditions threaten my life,” the man asked. He sounded humbled by this authority’s prognosis.

“Yes, it can have a profound impact on the quality of life…not to mention the physical side-affects. Tension headaches, high blood pressure, stomach problems and the like.”

“And don’t forget doctor, what such a condition does to the people around him. It turns him into quite a bore. People flee from the room at cocktail parties when they see him entering for fear of hearing a lecture on the importance of investing for retirement or some other terribly depressing topic.”

“I’ve never been accused of being a bore,” the man countered.

“Not to your face anyway,” the doctor pronounced.

Center stage. A great commotion and clattering caught everyone’s attention.

“Horsefeathers!” a new voice screeched in a squeaky manner that grated on everyone’s nerves.

Bang! The stage was once again bathed in a bright white light. A small man, with a polyester suit that did not fit right and shiny in all the worn places, sat on the floor where he must have tumbled. His thick glasses were askew on his face. A pile of books was scattered around him. A bright red toolbox had been overturned, the shiny tools bending the pages of the books.

Construction had been taking place on the stage. Ladders with paint buckets hung from loops created quite a hazard. Painters, dressed in white overalls, did not stop their work to wonder about the man sprawled on the ground and muttering expletives to himself.

One painter was finishing a snack break. He popped the last of a banana into his mouth and tossed the vibrant yellow peel to the hardwood stage floor.

The woman looked into the audience and shrugged.

“Messes, I hate messes,” the little man with the pinched face complained. He was on all fours, his rear swinging in the air, trying to stand and gather up his tossed books at the same time.

Suddenly, he stood. The pile of books in his arms made him top heavy. The man lurched back, stumbling right on to the banana peel.

“No one saw that coming,” the woman said.

The man’s feet slipped, he did a little jig, his feet moving faster and faster. He threw his hands into the air, and books flew like a flock of birds taking to wing.

“It’s time to take this show on the road,” the woman said.

The man in his panic to not fall again whirled around, his arms flailing, his legs kicking wildly. He slammed into one ladder; green paint fresh as spring grass splashed him in the face and coated his glasses. The ladder rocked but it did not fall.

The man stumbled blindly in the opposite direction and slammed into another ladder. More green paint spilled. More painters shouted. One by one the painters jumped from their perches at the tops of the ladders as the metal contraptions collapsed like dominos.

A chuckle and a snort and then full-blown laughter rumbled from the audience.

“Now that is funny!” the man said.

“I’m sure Mr. Higgle doesn’t think so,” the woman said. She walked over to the small man covered in bright green and laying on his back with his arms and legs up in the air. “Mr. Higgle, are you ok?”

“I’ve been painted!” Mr. Higgle screamed.

The man in the audience shouted his laughter.

Darkness covered the stage.

“Humor, like life, is what you make of it,” the woman’s voice quietly said. Silence hung on her words like icicles ready to melt in the coming heat of the morning.

The man stood and clapped.

“I love it!” the woman shouted.

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Biography: Dorothy McFalls resides in Folly Beach, South Carolina, a quirky southern beach community. She is an urban planner by profession but has given up her day job to devote her days to writing. She writes non-fiction urban planning and governmental process guidebooks, romance fiction, and short stories. Her latest book, Preparing a Cultural Resources Element for the Comprehensive Plan, will be available Summer 2002 – a “must read” for any local government.