“There’s too much sadness in my kingdom,”
proclaimed the King of Merryland.
“From now on, everybody shall be happy,
by the decree of me, the King of Merryland.”
All the people laughed and put on a happy face,
Oh, it was wonderful, where else but Merryland
would there be a national policy for emotions?
But.
There were dissenters. A group called “The Right to be Sad.”
They met and plotted and frowned together until they were
ready to go public with their sad expressions.
After they were seen in public, the King’s Assistant, Grin Reaper,
approached the King, and told him cheerfully:
“Your Royal Highness, it is my pleasure to tell you that
some sad faces have been spotted in Merryland. What shall we do?”
The King pondered this news with a wide, beaming grin.
He stood up and laughed loudly – and everybody joined in.
Eventually, he said, still occasionally guffawing:
“We shall, smilingly, take these gloomy men and lead them,
laughingly, to the yard of Public Executions, and there,
grinningly, shoot them, for we do not want sad people in Merryland.”
Everybody laughed at the King’s proclamation, dancing and smiling together.
Meanwhile.
Down at the Drink & Pout, our sad men drank and sighed with frowns.
They were startled when cheerful guards walked in and led them away,
laughingly,
“What are you going to do with us?” asked Gus Gloomy sighingly.
All he heard in response was laughter.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
The six of the Right to be Sad understood their fate
when they were led into the yard of Public Executions.
“Repent and laugh, my sad friends, and join us,” greeted the King.
None of the six, though, were in the mood for jovial laughter.
“Oh, well. Ha-ha. Shoot this depression from my sight,”
ordered the King of Merryland.
Bang-bang.
The shots rang out, killing the six members of
“The Right to be Sad.”
Afterwards, everybody laughed and sang, for the stigma of depression
had been removed from their sight.
But.
One of the guards actually thought about what he had done,
and he sighed, and he frowned, and became depressed.
His wife, Lucy, saw him frowning and promptly shot her husband
in the forehead with a gleeful laugh.
“Good work, Lucy! We must not let frowners and downers ruin this glorious day,”
congratulated the King of Merryland.
But.
Something was going wrong.
Bodies began to pile up as this hideous movement of
depression began sweeping the fair land of Merryland.
“Your majesty, the land is beginning to stink of death, though I will
not let this get me down, I will replace my frown with the mask of a
clown,” Grin Reaper said unconvincingly.
A tear, not from laughter, trickled down his cheek.
“Oh well. I’m sorry to see you go, Grin,” the King laughed as he
shot his only son from his dead wife, who had committed suicide.
The King walked around the city for the first time since the six
had been executed in the yard of Public Executions.
The streets were empty and dank, and then he turned a corner
and saw a man smashing his head against a brick wall, laughingly.
The smiling King asked the peasant: “My dear laughing peasant,
why are you smashing your head against this brick wall?”
The peasant cackled as blood poured down his face.
Then the peasant laughed uproariously,
sending a shiver down the spine of the King.
The King sighed and uttered through chattering teeth:
“This is not the laughter of joy, this is the laughter of madness,
I have spread sadness through Merryland, and now all is darkness.”
After the King finished his couplet,
He pulled out a revolver,
put it in his mouth,
and sadly, pulled the trigger.
Now only the laughter of madness
is heard in the land of Merryland.
1986