The Laughing Man

Josh Merriweather was the merriest man I ever met.


Josh Merriweather didn't have an "important" job that provided him with a substantial amount of money and revilement; in the end only his marred house was left to his name. Josh Merriweather wasn't patted by the silky hand of fame, which surrounded its recipient with a plethora of leeching, raping eyes; at his last stages in life the person who came closest to him, apart from myself, was the mailman who dropped the "last notice" bills on the foot of his door. Josh Merriweather had not found the mythical creature that people so often call "Love;" his face was far too deformed for people to remember that supposedly it was the inside that counted.
I was called to inspect the condition of this man. I had been informed that do to a wrecking depression Josh had slipped out of the sane margins of our society. His condition was of great weight, but he proved to be self sufficient and perfectly docile during his stay in St. Mangus Psychiatric Center. Thus, the doctors arranged an accord which reached both their interests enough to draw a noticeble benefit for the patient.


Allowed to live in his old home granted that he would be inspected over a period of every three months, Josh was transported to his old house and things were settled. A psychiatrist was appointed to him and things went ostentatiously smooth. However, the capability of the psychiatrist was later challenged, due to an incompetence with a paranoiac patient; I, Dr. Owler was assigned to the task.
So it brought me to the doorstep of a house with a wanton growth of weeds that serpented up the walls of the house. Such a dearth of discipline in the garden served to foreshadow what I would encounter once I grew weary of waiting for Josh to open the entrance to his home. With the twist of the wrist, I found the door to be open. I didn't know it at that time, but I was leaving the planet earth by simply setting foot into the dark interior of the structure.


I gasped with disgust at what I found inside the house. The walls were peeling from the abundance of a brown fungus. These organisms crowded the darkest corners of the room, which depleted not only the support of the walls, but also the health of the inhabitants. A particularly infested area was where a half consumed hotdog had been left. It didn't take long for me to hear the screeching and running of the rats gnawing at the molested sofa. The rodents were implacable and weren't content with the sofa as I could note by the markings of their malicious teeth all over the room. I have to admit that I found some aesthetic value to the situation. As I walked to a corridor, the rats noted my presence and dispersed to their borrows. "How fast nature reclaims its territory!" I remarked to myself.


As I advanced down the hallway, I was soon alarmed at a muffled sound. My pace was amplified as my curiosity was aroused. The noise became more and more clear as I came to closer proximity to it. Before long, I recognized it as a jovial laughter. Abruptly, I opened the door of the room responsible for this uproar. There, tied to a chair by potent rope laid Josh Merriweather with his old, spotted head fixed to a mirror in front of him.


All the while his assistant laughing was echoed all over the room. It was so genuine and persistent that is seemed amoral.


The institution had been right to question the integrity of the previous supervisor! This man was haggard with starvation; his cheeks were sunken, his mouth was desiccated and a scrutiny behind his shirt would surely reveal his ribcage penetrating through his skin. Also he was deeply fatigued. His laughter did not show it, but the fleshy purple hammocks of broken blood vessels under his bloodshot eyes said otherwise. However, perhaps the most scarring quality of his appearance was the gangrene blooming on his arms. Clearly the rats had used the opportunity that he was easy prey to mercilessly crunch his feet to the bone. The most callous human being would be impacted by such a miserable sight.
Before I could rush to the patient’s aid, a note carefully taped to a door caught my eyes.


"DO NOT DISTURB. For to disturb this laughter is to murder the only instance of true happiness. Due to a most advanced dementia, caused by acute depression, this patient has reached what the Buddhists refer to as 'Nirvana': the uninterrupted state of happiness. This individual has no long term memory. Additionally his short term memory elapses every five seconds. This cycle makes it feasible for him to laugh at his face without growing weary, minding neither time, nor physical ailments. Therefore, this man is spared the responsibilities of autonomy and the mercurial surprises of life; he lives a reality where he cannot be touched by any of the necessities of life."


With this, I joined josh in his vociferous howling. I took another sardonic look at him, noticing a clear cadence to his laughter. Approximately every 23 seconds his laughter became slightly more sonorous, then dropped gradually and finally louder again.


This man was trapped in time. He was living the same exact moment for many lifetimes. I spend the rest of my visit watching the oblivious man die many times over. He was no longer a man, but a photograph. A smiling photograph.
As I left house, myself in laughter, I knew that "happily ever-after's" did not exist for humankind. Our minds are not static like Josh and so we are prone to grow jaded. No one thing, person, place, memory can please us forever.


I found this thought reassuring as I drove back to the institute to report Josh Merriweather missing.