Magic ‘til the end

It surrounded her, pressing in from all corners. It started quiet, like a whisper over a shoulder. It started like an old TV, whining underneath the static of the mic. It started like the jolt of panic that stabs when the buzzing of a hornet floats around your head. It started swiftly, and then crashed down. She felt her hands trembling, as the crowd around fell into hysterics.

She didn’t laugh. She didn’t move. The laughter seemed eerie, not contagious. Something was off about it. The way that everyone just kept it going, the way their shoulders shook in unison, the way that no matter what she did, it would keep going.

It stopped just as suddenly, and she looked around in awe. The silence equally deafening. A slight ring in her ears left little space for peace. Her head swiveled to the stage, where a man walked out in front of the crowd. To his left, another held a sign.

OOOO. AHHH.

This was not what she expected when she’d agreed to go to a magic show that was to be recorded for TV. The way that they artificially brought laughs into the world seemed incorrect. It was like a handicap for a performer who may not have been gaining so many laughs if it wasn’t something that was put on camera for the world to see. She spied herself on the screen and forced a smile on her face, then, remembering the instructions, shaped an O with her lips and let out a soft noise.

She felt icky. She felt coerced. This wasn’t natural.

The magician pulled out a rabbit, she let out a chuckle, well timed with the rest of the crowd’s laughter. Looking to her left, she saw LAUGHTER flashing in big letters from the man’s sign. She supposed he must know the show well, to be able to time his signs that well.

The kid next to her laughed out of context. She looked at him, then past him, as the row to her right began to stand. A clear path out for the child. He didn’t seem to understand, and continued to laugh, even as the crowd remained silent, ordered so by the sign man on her left. Slowly, a man inched down their row, people took their seats as he passed.

SILENCE

The kid stopped laughing. The crowd turned like tennis spectators and faced the man on stage again.

She did the same, but watched from the corner of her eyes as the boy was grabbed under the elbow, forced to stand, and walked back down their row, up the stairs to the back of the room, and out the double doors. They swung back and forth, back and forth, in their wake.

Maya swallowed, and kept her gaze trained on the man with the sign. She wouldn’t make a noise, she decided. She didn’t like the look of the man who took the child, he was unnaturally stiff, he didn’t speak, and she feared that he was not someone she would want contact with.

The sign changed again.

Spectator 43

She looked around, watched a girl rise and stumble down the aisle to the stage. She looked sweaty, her hands were shaking as she stepped ever closer. LAUGHTER Maya gazed on, puzzled, the in sync laughter getting louder as was instructed by the colors of the sign. Red for maniacal laughter, green for a light chuckle.

Silence

43 reached the stage, she climbed the steps and stopped in front of the magician.

“43 seems to think I’m not funny enough to engage with the instructor to my right here,” the magician said. “So hopefully she will find this more funny.”

He placed a hand on the back of the girl, and led her toward the other side of the stage.

“I thought we’d show the audience how to saw someone in half.” He flicked a grin at them.

Laughter.

The girl whimpered, loud, over the rumble of the crowd.

She climbed in the box, he readied it, grabbed his saw.

OOOO

He began to slice, the girl began to shake, to struggle against the cage she was enclosed in. To no avail. Maya wondered why she was scared, she knew she must be curled up inside, they all knew she wouldn’t come near the saw blade.

A scream launched from 43’s throat, and Maya froze. The girl didn’t stop screaming, not until blood dribbled off the stage.

Laughter, red.

She let herself laugh. She laughed until salty tears dribbled off the tip of her nose. She laughed as she watched a young girl, sobbing hysterically, being dragged behind the swinging doors. She laughed, manically, as the magician flipped the box in half, twisted the inside toward the audience. She laughed red as she looked at the remains of 43, the remains of the girl who didn’t laugh.

OOOO

Maya let out her ooo as the tears kept flowing off her face. She let them, acting as if she was still chuckling. Her ooo faded. Maya didn’t try to find its return. She let it fade out, just as 43 had. She willed herself into silence. She didn’t feel like laughing at someone’s death.

Spectator 154

Maya started, that was her. She looked at her ring finger, where 154 circled like the rings across her other fingers.

Someone yanked her standing by her elbow sending a sharp pain stabbing through her shoulder. It kept aching as she was sent stumbling to the stage. Tears fell from her nose. A constant stream now. She held her head high though.

“Ah, I see we have another who feels they are above watching my magic shows,” the magician said. “I have something else in mind for you though.”

She was yanked back down the steps, her stumbling bringing her hand to grip the rails on the side.

“We’ll send her through the doors with the rest of them and see how she likes it there,” the magician said.

The doors swung open, to what looked like a second version of the same auditorium. She felt a sting in her neck.

“Ow! What was that?” she asked.

“Ah don’t worry about it, you’ll forget soon.”

Laughter

The number 1327 seemed to glow around her finger, and her neck had a crick. But Maya couldn’t remember how long she had been here. Just that she was watching one of the funniest magic shows she’d ever seen. Beneath her feet pooled a crimson liquid, it reminded her of wine. She couldn’t remember the last time she had wine.

Another spectator was led to the stage. Maya turned to face it.

Silence