15 On Sleep Deprivation

Then an eccentric hummed the first three bars of “Light My Fire”, threw his toupée into the wind and shouted, Speak to us of sleep deprivation.

And verily he answered:

We are all too frequently bored by the virtue of moderation. Instead, we worship the goddess of excess, even if her fruits be strangely devoid of nourishment. And our misfortunate celebrities are destined to let us down.

I have been up now for three days, and three nights in an orgy of wakefulness. And verily I did pass through the doors of perception, and cross over to the other shore. And there I did see visions of rare truth and beauty.

I kept a careful diary of my thoughts and notions, born of this caffeine induced madness. And though my writings may some day be published, I suspect them to be mysteriously lacking in meaning and content.

14 On Humour

Then the world’s funniest dentist said, Speak to us of humour.
And he chuckled, and he said:

Humour is the ability to laugh at one’s own sad self.
Humour is a million joy buzzers, rubber chickens and whoopee cushions.
Humour is something your children know, but many of you have sadly forgotten.
For there can be no sacrilege in humour. You would do well to leave no sacred cow untipped.

For a bad joke is naught but that which is unfunny.
And a funny joke is simply one which contains hidden within it a tiny grain of truth, to make you itch and scratch, even as you are convulsed with laughter.
Don’t take my word too seriously folks, for you can never quite tell when I’m joking.
But do pay close attention to what I say, or you may never know when I’m serious.

At this point, sadly, the prophet’s train of thought mysteriously derailed, and he might never have gotten back on track, had he not stubbed his toe on the rim of the oil drum.

Unfortunately the memory that now sprang to mind was unrelated to the present discourse. Instead, he recalled a conversation he’d had the last time he’d stubbed his toe. On that occasion he had been chatting with his biographer about the possibility of selling his life’s story. Thus he now spoke:

Is one’s life story a commodity, the right to which one naturally owns? You may well wonder, how it should be possible to sell the story of one’s own life. How much will the networks pay for a poor prophet’s tale? How much will the publisher shell out to re-package and re-issue his collected works? My contract forbids me to disclose the sum.

The crowd might have been thinking that their beloved old coot had finally lost his marbles until someone suggested:
I think he’s joking.

And thus cathartic laughter began to ripple the crowd.
The prophet was not immune, and his matted beard began to quiver, and his belly began to shake until he burst.

And the two hundred migrants were infected also, and their precarious platform creaked and shivered dangerously, with peals of ecstatic laughter.

Until finally, the people of Orphalese just lost it. Tears streamed down their faces, and they turned to each other for support, clutching their neighbors to steady themselves, or else they would have toppled like dominoes.