Perhaps naively I thought people understand what humor was, that

Host:
The night was heavy with rain, its silver threads falling over the quiet streets like tired thoughts refusing to rest. Inside a small theater, long since abandoned to dust and memory, two figures sat in the dark — Jack and Jeeny. The stage lights were dead, the old curtains torn and still. Yet, on the empty stage, the faint glow of a lone lamp threw trembling light against the rows of empty seats — ghosts of laughter still echoed faintly, as if the room itself was remembering how to smile.

Host:
They had come there often in the past — a place where comedy once lived, and where truth, wrapped in humor, had once found an audience. But tonight, there was no audience. Only the hum of rain and the ghosts of jokes that no one remembered anymore.

Jeeny spoke first, her voice soft, carrying the weight of something between sorrow and disbelief.

“Perhaps naively I thought people understand what humor was, that it was invented by the human race to cope with the dark areas of life, problems and terrors.”
— Bill Forsyth

Jack:
(quietly, with a faint smirk)
“Cope with the dark, huh? I don’t think we use humor to cope anymore. We use it to hide.”

Jeeny:
“Maybe hiding is coping. Sometimes laughter is the only way the soul can cover a wound before it bleeds out.”

Host:
The lamp’s flame flickered as if responding to her words, and in its light, the dust danced like tiny forgotten stars.

Jack:
“Funny thing, isn’t it? The same species that built bombs and prisons also invented punchlines. But now it feels like we’ve turned humor into a weapon. Not to comfort, but to cut.”

Jeeny:
“Because we’re afraid. When people are afraid, they mock what they can’t control. But true humor — the kind Forsyth meant — that’s something sacred. It’s not about attack. It’s about survival.”

Host:
Her eyes, deep and dark, caught the faint light, and for a moment, they seemed to hold reflections of the entire empty theater — the laughter, the tears, the trembling space between them.

Jack:
“You call it sacred. I call it anesthesia. We joke so we don’t feel. We turn tragedy into punchlines because we’re terrified of its silence.”

Jeeny:
“But isn’t that still a kind of grace, Jack? To take the darkness and dress it in laughter — to give it shape so it doesn’t devour us whole?”

Host:
He leaned back, his grey eyes shadowed under the dying lamp. The rain outside grew stronger, drumming like faint applause against the cracked windows.

Jack:
“I think humor used to be courage. Now it’s camouflage.”

Jeeny:
“Or maybe both. Maybe courage always needed disguise. People laugh not because things are funny, but because they refuse to let fear win.”

Host:
The air between them thickened — that strange tension where two truths circle each other, neither yielding.

Jack:
“You ever notice how no one tells jokes about themselves anymore? It’s always someone else — some target. The punchline always has a face.”

Jeeny:
“Because it’s easier to point a gun than a mirror. But the best humor has always been the mirror — one that says, ‘See? You’re ridiculous. And that’s okay.’”

Host:
A soft wind slipped through a crack in the door, stirring the tattered curtains. The faint odor of wet wood and old paint filled the room — the smell of a place that had lived too many lives.

Jack:
“People used to laugh together. Now they laugh apart — in their own little corners of the internet. It’s not healing anymore. It’s noise.”

Jeeny:
“Maybe it’s because we’ve forgotten why we invented laughter in the first place. It wasn’t entertainment. It was survival instinct. A defiance of despair.”

Host:
He turned toward her, his expression half cynical, half searching.

Jack:
“Defiance, huh? That’s poetic. But I wonder, Jeeny… do you think we’d still laugh if there were no darkness left to fight?”

Jeeny:
“Then humor would die. Because without darkness, there’s nothing left to balance the light. Laughter was never meant to erase fear — just to keep it company.”

Host:
The lamp flickered again, threatening to die, its weak flame trembling against the encroaching dark. Their faces looked softer now, caught between shadow and glow, like two ideas on the verge of reconciliation.

Jack:
“I used to think laughter was cheap. Like a distraction. But when my mother was dying, she told me a joke. Right there, in the hospital bed. Said it was her way of tricking death into thinking she wasn’t afraid. Maybe she was right. Maybe humor’s not denial — maybe it’s rebellion.”

Jeeny:
“It is rebellion. The kind that doesn’t need a flag or a fight — just a breath of laughter in the face of despair. Humor doesn’t ask for victory; it asks for endurance.”

Host:
Something shifted in the air — a warmth, a quiet understanding that even the empty theater seemed to feel.

Jack:
“You ever think humor is divine? Like... maybe the gods made it because even they couldn’t handle their own chaos.”

Jeeny:
(smiling faintly)
“I think humor is the proof we’re still evolving. It’s what keeps us human when everything else pushes us toward machine.”

Host:
The rain softened, becoming a soft rhythmic whisper, the sound of forgiveness falling from the sky.

Jack:
“So, Forsyth thought we invented humor to cope. But what if humor’s not invention at all? What if it’s instinct — the soul’s reflex when it sees darkness and still dares to smile?”

Jeeny:
“Then maybe that’s what being human really means — not the ability to reason or build or destroy, but to laugh, even when the world burns.”

Host:
He looked at her for a long moment, the corners of his mouth lifting into something almost like peace.

Jack:
“You really think laughter saves us?”

Jeeny:
“It doesn’t save us. It reminds us we’re worth saving.”

Host:
The lamp finally went out, and for a brief, breathless second, the theater plunged into complete darkness. Yet even there — in the thick black — came a small, unexpected sound: Jack’s laughter.

It wasn’t mocking, nor bitter, nor hollow. It was tired, real, and strangely pure — the kind of laughter that comes not from amusement, but recognition.

Jeeny, hearing it, laughed too — softly, her laughter like a light tracing the contours of the dark.

And for that single, fleeting moment, the darkness wasn’t frightening anymore. It was warm.

Host:
Outside, the rain stopped. The moon, pale and hesitant, broke through the clouds, casting faint silver light through the cracked window.

It fell across the stage, where once, long ago, actors had spoken words meant to make people forget their pain.

Now, two souls sat in the audience of the empty world — and remembered why humor was ever born:
Not to mock,
Not to escape,
But to remind the heart that even in shadow, it still knows how to shine.