Laughter

Of course, if we started to laugh, really started, we wouldn't be able to stop, how could we? If we really laughed, if we laughed from the bottom of our lungs, from our bellies …, what then?

Laughter would laugh at itself, W. says. It would laugh at laughter and at us, we laughers, who have the audacity to laugh. Hasn't he always dreamt of a laughter that would sweep us away? Of a laughter that would return us to the original state of the world, the empty fields, the empty sky … and to the interruption of that state – the first loping hominids, the first to move to stand upright, the first to split the air in two with their joy?

That's what we stood on two legs to do, says W. Laugh! To laugh at our imposture! To laugh at our standing up and the rest of nature lost in itself! If we started to laugh, how could we stop? At the imposture of our lives. At our mockery of uprightness … At ourselves laughing and the audacity of our laughter.

For our time is running out, says W. Soon it will be the empty fields, the empty sky once again. Soon the earth will turn into fire; soon a new, fiery dawn will burn away everything. That's what laughter knows, says W. That's what it knows as it laughs at itself.