A Time to Laugh

One upon a time, there was an evil hypnotist that captured the minds of his performers on-stage. The audience found it laughable watching the performers march in order and act like they were shooting each other while taking turns at playing dead. The most humorous part of it was how real the performers believed it all to be.

They would change sides after each act, with the villains replacing the heroes, now acting out their new part with equal fervor as their earlier performance.

After the laughter began to die down from watching beautiful swans being turned into ugly ducklings, the hypnotist would awaken the stage performers and they would tentatively walk back to their seats in the audience, never quite knowing the part they had played while on-stage.

Then the next group from the audience would be chosen to perform their act and the process would start all over again.

The hypnotist knew that he could not hold the attention of the audience forever nor could he completely capture their minds all at once--and this is why he listened for their lack of laughter before moving on to the next act.

For the evil hypnotist knew that his most vulnerable time was when the laughter began to die down. At this moment, the audience had begun to feel a sadness for the stage performers whose tired proclamations justifying their pantomime performance of violence towards each other had lost all meaning.

But the most unnerving part of it all for the hypnotist was that there were some in the audience that no longer walked on stage to perform. All these types ever appeared to do is look at him. They said nothing. And they participated not at all.

So those in the audience continued to shuffle around as on-stage performers while the few watched without a word. Although the watchers did indeed laugh at the performers now and then, they did not do so at the same time as the rest of the audience.

As time continued to pass, something else began to happen. The number of stage performers began to diminish as the number of watchers began to grow.

Given enough time, the evil hypnotist realized that he would be dealt with by the watchers. He knew that they did not appreciate being used as pawns in his war games skit. The watchers also had enough of his sketchy scripts justifying his cruelty towards the performers and how he would dupe them into going against their own best interests by getting them to believe his lies.

The problem with a captive audience is that, sooner or later, they will realize who made them a captive.

That was when the audience began laughing at the same time--and not at the performers. They began to laugh at themselves for their own foolishness.

The evil hypnotist began looking for a way out. He knew that what was coming for him next would be his final performance.