“Ladies and Gentlemen, Mister Will Strickland.”

There was a minor eruption of interest as Will climbed the short steps that lead up onto the stage– He swaggered on, clad in his turtleneck and a cigarette clenched daringly between two fingers.  His confidence was only betrayed by the quiver of his hand, swinging the cigarette back and forth.  The smoke formed a wreath around his grinning face.

“Hello everybody.”

It had been the usual chain of delays on the way to the Possum Ridge comedy club and it was taking all of his energy to conceal his exhaustion, diving through his material; thanking the powers that be whenever it received some kind of reaction.  The show had become an exercise for him; it was an expected chain reaction with only some variable elements and all of those lay with the audience.

Some shows were different, it was true and there was the occasional one that reminded Will why he was in the business.  On a good night; standing in front of a throng of people and being the sole focus of their attention made you feel like a prophet.  Instead of a soap-box you got a stage; that was the only difference.

Tonight he could see people speaking to each other, treating his act as if it was construction work across the street.  He tried to ignore them, hoping that that indefinable divine spark of comedy would enter him again, that he could experience the warming sound of a room full of appreciative laughter.  He had three shows left to do during his stay in Alabama and his odds weren’t good.

The first night in Fyffe wasn’t bad, though even though the crowd was making plenty of noise their clamour was more to do with the evening of drinking that had preceded his gig, they laughed not for any real investment in what he was saying but for his body language his facial gesture prompting them into baaing a certain way; Will could always tell the difference.  In his mind Will was the shepherd herding his flock of drunken sheep through the treacherous path of comedy, always losing a few along the way.  Tonight they were obeying him and that would have to do.

The week before in a college bar in New York the crowd had not been so co-operative, but Will had put them in their place, he did not care for disobedient sheep.  Even as he cracked his jokes the memories of that night haunted him.  What had he done to deserve a room of silence?  He had found comedy death that night as not a single joke got any kind of reaction; it wasn’t just that either, they didn’t ignore him; they just looked at him as if they were waiting for the real act to come on.  It was a drawn out semi-status of an existence.  His life’s work reduced to a side attraction for nothing.

*

“Great show.”

People rarely came up to Will after a show and in fact Will was surprised that there was a member of his audience that was still able to stand upright.  He found himself looking into a wrinkled face framed by a thick set of glasses and long grey hair.  He was holding something out to him which Will took instinctively, thinking that it was something that the man wanted signed.  He looked at it, just a black circle set into a metallic box.  It was as heavy as a brick in his hand but only the size of a credit card.

“This will help you out, Will.”  The man spoke with a heavy southern accent but there was an odd aura about him that didn’t seem entirely human.

“Hey, what is this thing?  If I can’t smoke it I don’t want it.”

“Take it on stage with you, you’ll see.”

He was offered a brief wrinkled grin before the man turned and walked back into the crowd.  Will grew angry at the device, why had that man given him something that he had no use for?  He wasn’t superstitious, he didn’t believe in luck, he wanted to throw it in the gutter and walk off, put on a show for the old man but something kept him from doing it.  The little box felt precious in his hand, Will’s mother had always scolded him for dropping things, throw some away, throw it all way, that’s what she had said.

He slipped it into his trouser pocket and instantly started scheduling in his mind when he would be able to get it appraised and hopefully sold.

*

His next show was at the John Hunt community centre on the outskirts of Huntsville.  In a way he preferred these gigs, they didn’t pay as well as the bigger venues but he generally had fewer issues with small crowds.  The waiting area back stage was warm and the content murmur of relaxed conversation dripped through the stage doors and swelled around him.  Will was about to go on when he brushed something hard in his side pocket.  He had forgotten all about the metal box already, it was too late to put it away—

“Evening everybody!”

The small crowd was unusually kind to Will tonight, each joke brought greater and greater applause until the tiny venue was trembling with the force of their rapturous ovations.  Their laughter was like a drug to Will, pushing him on and on.  By the end he was truly drained but looking out into the small pool of faces, exhausted from their laughter.  This, he thought, was what it was all about; this is what he was waiting for.

Adrenaline numbs a performer’s body when he’s on stage and once its effect wore off Will he became aware of a tiny vibration from his trouser pocket.  He slipped out the device like a pack of cigarettes looked at it in the palm of his still trembling hand.  The black circle was now partially green.  He shook it; it felt solid, definitely no moving parts.  The green segment was like a piece of a pie chart, taking up around a quarter of the black circle.  Will put it back into his pocket, he’d keep it around for now.  The fact that it changed colour made it interesting to him, even if it would just turn out to be a gimmicky toy.

*

The next show was at a slightly larger venue, a comedy club imaginatively titled “The Comedy Club” that happened to be mercifully close to Will’s hotel.  He liked walking to shows; it gave him some time to think things out but he found himself thinking about the device in his pocket against his will, wondering if it would react to his coming performance, whether or not it was some voodoo charm that somehow measured how well a show went.  Will wasn’t sure how many voodoo practitioners’ were into stand-up comedy.

This show eclipsed the first, Will’s act seemed to break down inhibitions and enlighten the entire audience, pulling them into his world.  Everything he said to them they listened to sincerely.  For that period of time Bill really did feel like a prophet and the laughter came in waves, each greater than the last.  Once Will had them as high as he felt they could go, he left the stage.  He did no encores; his only thoughts were on the device.  The first second that he was alone he slipped it out of his pocket.

It had changed.  The green area now took up over half of the black circle.  He tapped it, shook it, listened to it, but otherwise it still seemed the same inert heavy block of unknown steel.  Will’s curiosity was becoming a fever, had it been the source of his two good shows?  Was it good luck?  Did Will even believe in luck?  Will had one show left to do before he returned home.  Then he was going to get it checked out, maybe by a priest.

Will was sure he could get a joke out of it somehow.  If only people could share his fascination with it.  It would be something to think about on the plane ride home.

*

His final show was the big one.  It was in the Von Braun Concert Hall which seated over two thousand people.  Everything so far had just been a warm up for this; his agent had almost got himself killed getting this booking and Will was going to do a show that was worth one human life.  He was given a real changing room this time and was amazed when an attractive blonde dropped off a plate of sandwiches, the bread tasted slightly stale but Will wasn’t complaining, it was free food and he needed something in his stomach.  Two thousand expectant faces were waiting on him, their shepherd, and their teacher.

As he walked onto the stage he was blasted with a Metallica track almost making him leap off the stage.  What inspired them to pick Metallica, he wondered.  He steadied himself and completed the long walk to the centre of the stage.

“Evening everybody!”

The crowd clapped and cheered.

“You’ll have to bear with me tonight; I’m undertaking a scientific experiment in my never-ending pursuit of galactic knowledge.”

The crowd laughed as Will attached the rectangle of the device onto his microphone stand, delicately balancing it between the two prongs that had held the microphone until his arrival.  He was sure he saw the green section grow as he backed away to address the audience.

“The thing you have to remember folks is that laughter is energy.  Joy is energy that each of us has to maintain, develop and share.  Now I know what some of you are saying.  But Will, Joy doesn’t protect our interests; you can’t load Joy into a gun and kill somebody with it.  But I say, why not?”

Will made a gun shape with his hand and mimed shooting the audience.

“Now you’re full of Joy pilgrim.”

The crowd laughed, their combined exhalations of appreciation combining into a wave that washed over the stage.  Will kept one eye on the device; the green section was visibly growing in front of him.

“That’s right, Joy kills.  If people didn’t love fighting each other so much there wouldn’t be wars, if arms manufacturers didn’t love making money so much there wouldn’t be any proliferation of WMDs and if the illuminate didn’t love giving us the illusion of choice; there wouldn’t be two parties.”

The green area was expanding faster and faster.  The laughter seemed accentuated and violent like a waterfall descending into a whirlpool.  Will looked on as the black space had almost disappeared entirely.

“But, while we are still on this planet together.  I’d like to say a few things.  Joy is very rarely something we can take freely and the more we try, the more we will be disappointed.  It’s the joy we give that really counts and I think if God above, or the angels and aliens are truly watching.  That’s what they’ll be judging us by.  So I guess I’ll see you in hell.”

It was one more hail of dizzying laughter and there was now no black left in the circle on the device.  The whole device now shone green and white before projecting a beam of energy towards the sky and through the roof, disintegrating it in an instant and revealing the stars.

Will stared helplessly upwards into the sky, unable to process what had just happened.  The crowd were laughing but this faltered, most realizing that this was probably was not part of the act.  Together they watched in disbelief as a circular ship descended, hovering just above the stage, Will looked down at the audience and smiled as the white light engulfed him, looking up into the light without fear, like he wasn’t sure whether or not it had all been a dream up until that point and he was only waking in that moment.

“Goodbye everybody.”

Will seized the metal box in his hand as he was pulled up into the spacecraft which then shot up towards the stars.  The concert hall of people was left looking up through the clear night sky, each wondering where Will Strickland had gone and where he had come from.