If Shaw and Einstein couldn't beat death, what chance have I got?

Host: The graveyard was bathed in the low, golden light of a setting sun — the kind of light that makes even tombstones look tender. The air was crisp, carrying the faint scent of autumn leaves and something older: the soft, sweet decay of memory. In the distance, the faint sound of a jazz trumpet drifted from a nearby street, as if someone was trying to charm time itself into pausing.

Jack stood by the iron gate, his coat collar turned up against the chill. In his hands was a folded piece of paper, the edges worn soft — a quote, both funny and fatalistic, printed in bold black letters:
“If Shaw and Einstein couldn’t beat death, what chance have I got? Practically none.” — Mel Brooks

Jeeny knelt nearby, tracing the moss-covered name of some forgotten playwright with her fingers. Her dark hair fell loose against the wind, her eyes reflecting that strange blend of humor and melancholy that always came when she spoke of mortality.

Jeeny: “Mel Brooks always knew how to laugh at the apocalypse. He looked death straight in the face and handed it a punchline.”

Jack: “That’s because comedy’s the only weapon left against inevitability. You can’t beat death, but you can at least mock it.”

Jeeny: “Mocking it doesn’t make it less real.”

Jack: “No, but it makes it tolerable. Shaw and Einstein were geniuses — two minds who bent reality. If even they couldn’t cheat the end, then the rest of us might as well stop pretending immortality is a prize worth chasing.”

Host: The wind picked up, scattering a few brittle leaves across the path like little, golden ghosts. Jeeny rose slowly, dusting her hands, her expression thoughtful.

Jeeny: “You know, that’s what I love about Brooks — he wasn’t being cynical. He was being human. He’s saying: If the greatest minds can’t beat it, then maybe beating it was never the point.”

Jack: “Then what is the point? Living gracefully into extinction?”

Jeeny: “No. Living vividly before it. Laughing at the fact that you don’t get to keep the ticket.”

Jack: “You make laughter sound holy.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. It’s the one sound that defies gravity — it comes from the lungs, rises to the air, and refuses to stay buried.”

Host: A soft chuckle escaped Jack’s throat — quiet, warm, reluctant. He unfolded the paper again, smoothing its creases, reading the words as if they’d been written for this exact dusk.

Jack: “Shaw tried to rewrite humanity. Einstein redefined the universe. But in the end, they both faced the same silence.”

Jeeny: “And Brooks reminds us that silence doesn’t have to be solemn.”

Jack: “So, what then — laughter as legacy?”

Jeeny: “Laughter as rebellion.”

Host: The light dimmed slowly, the horizon dissolving into violet and blue. A raven flitted from one tree to another, its wings cutting through the dying day like a black brushstroke.

Jack: “You really think humor can stand against death?”

Jeeny: “Not stand against — dance beside. The absurdity of being alive is that we know the ending and still perform the play.”

Jack: “You think Brooks saw it that way?”

Jeeny: “Of course he did. His whole life was a eulogy told as a vaudeville act. He made death sit in the front row and laugh.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s why people love him — because he gave permission to be afraid without being crushed by it.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Fear becomes lighter when it’s shared through laughter. It’s humanity’s oldest survival trick — we joke about what we can’t control.”

Host: A church bell rang faintly in the distance — slow, solemn tolls that rolled across the field. Jeeny and Jack turned toward the sound, standing together in the amber wash of evening.

Jack: “You know, there’s a kind of poetry in that quote. He’s admitting defeat but turning it into a punchline. It’s the ultimate human contradiction — acknowledging doom while daring to grin.”

Jeeny: “And that’s why it’s beautiful. Because humor doesn’t deny fear; it transforms it.”

Jack: “So you think that’s courage — laughing in the face of the inevitable?”

Jeeny: “No. Courage is accepting the inevitable without losing your curiosity about it.”

Jack: “Curiosity about death?”

Jeeny: “Yes. About what comes after the final blackout. About how much laughter can echo when the curtain falls.”

Host: The two of them walked slowly through the rows of stone, their shadows stretching long and uneven. The air was colder now, but the conversation burned with that rare heat of shared understanding — equal parts irony and awe.

Jack: “It’s strange, isn’t it? The smartest people in history — they all end up here. Equal under dirt, equal under stars.”

Jeeny: “And yet we remember them. Not because they escaped death, but because they met it with a spark — an idea, a word, a joke.”

Jack: “You make it sound almost romantic.”

Jeeny: “It is. We spend our lives trying to make something so beautiful that it outlives our bodies. Even a laugh can outlast bone.”

Jack: “But eventually even the laugh fades.”

Jeeny: “Yes, but the echo remains. Maybe that’s enough.”

Host: They stopped at the edge of the path, overlooking the river that wound through the valley like a glimmering scar. The moon was rising now — pale, calm, eternal.

Jeeny: “If Shaw and Einstein couldn’t beat death, neither can we. But we can make death chase us through art, through wit, through every honest thing we say before it finds us.”

Jack: “And when it catches us?”

Jeeny: “We hope it laughs.”

Host: Jack smiled then — not bitterly, but softly, like someone who had just found a truce with time.

Jack: “You know, Brooks was right. We don’t stand a chance. Practically none.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And that’s what makes every minute a miracle.”

Host: A gust of wind blew through the graveyard, rustling the trees, scattering leaves over stone — a small applause for two mortals daring to find comedy in eternity.

And as they walked away under the rising moon, Mel Brooks’s words lingered in the chill air like a wink from the universe itself —

that mortality is the ultimate joke,
that humor is our last defiance,
and that in the face of the inevitable,
the bravest act of all
is to laugh loud enough
for the cosmos to hear us back.