I wrote this story in January 2007. I was so sickened by the idea of millions of people watching Saddam Hussein's execution on the internet at the end of 2006 that I wanted to start off the new year affirming the very real qualities of faith, joy, belief, and dreams.

THE DISCOVERY OF LAUGHTER
"Have you ever tried to photograph laughter?" the prospector asked me.

What an odd question. From a very odd man. "Well, I've seen people laughing," I said. "What's the big deal?".

The prospector shook his head, took off his tattered hat. He scratched his stubble. "No, no," he said. "Not people laughing. Laughter. Have you ever seen a photograph of laughter?"

I thought about it a while. I had to admit, he was right. I'd never seen a photograph of laughter.

"It's like photographing wind," he continued, "you can't do it. And all wind is, is air in motion."

I nodded.

"So what is laughter?" he asked me.

What is laughter? I didn't know. I hadn't thought about it. It was then that I realized I hadn't laughed in ages.

"You haven't laughed in a long, long, time, have you?" the prospector asked me. He put his hat back on. Scary how he read my thoughts.

I shook my head. Couldn't say a word.

"How long have you been in prison?" he asked me.

How did he know? I looked upon the ground moving swiftly beneath me. I had been imprisoned so long I couldn't remember a time when I'd been free.

The prospector didn't ask me again. My silence spoke for itself.

We were riding upon the mares of night, towards a field of which we only dreamed. At least, that's what he told me. He'd appeared in my cell by surprise last night, took my hand, and whisked me away through the window. When I asked him how he'd gotten in my cell through locked doors, he replied, as if I was obtuse beyond belief, "There's always a window."

What a strange prospector he was. No bucket nor shovel in his hand, but he had a prospector's hat, and most importantly, an adventurous gleam in his eyes. His eyes hadn't died even a single time, unlike mine.

We hopped upon the waiting mares of the night. They glistened in the moonlight, like slivers of silver, the laws of untamed motion inscribed in their manes. They started trotting away through the lush hush of night, when the prospector unexpectedly asked me about laughter.

We were silent for a while longer, until I asked him exactly where he was taking me. That's when he told me, enunciating each word carefully, as if he were speaking jeweled speech, "The fields of which we only dream. It's not much longer."

We cantered through the desert. Cacti, solitary sentinels watching the world with infinite patience, guarded our secret flight through the night. I started playing solitaire in my head. I always did this, to kill time. I didn't have any cards, but that didn't matter-I was used to dealing with the cards the world had dealt me in my head.

I'd made up my own suits, as they reflected the ruthless truth of reality. Clubs were the weapons of contemporary battle-WMD, surface-to-air missiles, land mines. Spades I imagined as the endless spades which dug endless graves in wars, whether Darfur, Iraq, or sporadic terrorist attacks. And, of course, there was the embattled environment, in a state of such stratospheric catastrophe that the earth itself was nothing more than a gigantic spade with which we dug our own gigantic grave. Diamonds represented oil, money, and the interminable need of unceasing greed. As when animals were stuffed next to one another, thousands upon thousands, imprisoned in pens, allowed to live only as another's food...

Hearts? I didn't think the suit really existed. Rapid-fire neurons should adorn the cards instead. The world was governed by ego-trips, selfishness, wicket wit, and an intellect so distilled the heart tore itself apart, vanished.

Blackguard hearts were as much of a joke as the Joker, whom I saw as the wildcard deity overseeing the grand game. And who were the aces, kings, queens, and jacks? No question there-the celebrities who celebrated themselves. From A-list to D-list.

The game was appropriately called solitaire. Solitaire, truth or dare, no one really truly cares...

"You haven't dared to laugh in ages. You've been playing the game in your head too long," the prospector told me.

I closed my mouth. Had it been open? Had I been speaking to myself?

The prospector's silence spoke for itself.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I didn't realize..."

"You, son, more than anyone"-he turned to me, and gently stopped his horse-"need the fields of which we only dream."

I licked my lips. It just all seemed so hopeless--the fields of which we only dream? What was the point of a draining dream? Dreams were the damn problems. The world would be so much easier to accept without them.

"Look," I said, nearly trembling, "wherever you're taking me, it's a joke. A field of useless dreams. The world as it is, is the true reality. The solitaire in my head is more true-to-life than whatever you've got to show me." I stopped talking. This prospector made me nervous, and I didn't know why. Could it be because he seemed to see through me so well? To cover my anxiety I said with cynical bravado, "And what the hell do you prospect anyway? All minerals have already been mined out of the earth."

The prospector nudged the mares of night into action. They galloped now, their manes untamed even by wind. The prospector seemed to really be in a rush. "Look, son," he said, "I have no delusions about the world as it really is. The world's a symphony of phoniness. A madcap cavalcade of carelessness. Starts with a prelude of lunacy, ends with a coda of idiocy. I'll tell you the truth-without the fields of which we only dream, your heart doesn't stand a chance against it." He glanced at me then, and to my surprise his eyes still sparkled with that adventurous gleam. As dazzling as the crush of stars hanging overhead. My eyes had never looked like that.

"I'll let you know later what I prospect for. Or maybe you'll tell me. But I'll tell you this much-there's an endless supply of it, but its buried really deep, and hidden really well. Too much for just one prospector. That's why there are prospectors everywhere. But we're arriving now, and we have to see the fields of which we only dream before the mares of night are snared by the light of day."

And to my surprise, we had arrived.

**
The air-balloons danced in a dancing wind.

One after the other, air-balloons took off from rocky hillocks of earth, and departed for the stars. Each balloon shifted into different shades-gold, cobalt, burgundy, lavender-as it took off. Some carried only one passenger, some were filled with dozens.

The hills appeared to belong to another planet, as they were so lavishly splashed with rock. Not a blade of grass to be seen. Where in the world were we?

The prospector looked at me, smiling. "We're not anywhere extraordinary. Just a patch of unusual earth. Another prospector once told me it's a 'forsaken keepsake of the desert.' It's uninhabited, that's all,
and gives us the space for the balloons to take off." He suddenly took off his hat, and threw it in the air. He jumped off his horse and laughed as he ran to catch it.

I descended from my gentle mare of the night, while he said reflectively, "Sometimes, all you need is space. Space for your mind to stop thinking. There are fields of which we only dream everywhere-this is the closest to where you live."

But I was furiously thinking. Where were these balloons going? Who was in them?

And what was this prospector prospecting? And what was he expecting to happen here?

The prospector put his hand on my shoulder. Such warmth. I almost pulled away.

"You've been imprisoned a long, long, time, son," he said sadly, "so long. Just watch the balloons. Try not to think."

He suddenly dropped down on a big rock, and watched the performance in the sky. I did the same, without a thought.

We gazed at the floating balloons for a while. Surprisingly, the light of the moon and stars was enough to illuminate the fields. At times, so many balloons lifted off into the sky at once the sky seemed jammed with magic gemstones. To my surprise I found myself wishing I could wish upon one of these enchanted jewels and make my dreams for the world come true.

The prospector's voice broke through my reverie. In a whisper, without turning from the colorful spectacle in the sky, he asked me, "So what did you do? What got you in?"

This shocked me. He hadn't before alluded to the cause of my imprisonment.

What could I say? Too much had happened. And I wasn't even sure if it was I who got my self in, or the world that did it to me.

I swallowed. "Does it really matter?" I asked him.

He shook his head. Then he turned to me, eyes highlighted by the setting light of the moon. I felt I wasn't looking at a man, merely a specter of a strange prospector. "Not to me, it doesn't. Just making conversation." And he patted my shoulder again.

After a time, I put my head upon my knees, and shut my eyes. What was happening? Where was I? Was I hallucinating upon balloons? I wanted my old world back. I wanted the walled-in safety of imprisonment. The secure damned-if-I-care, of my game of solitaire.

The prospector said kindly, (why was he still so kind?) "Do you know what sends those balloons up in the air?".

I shook my head, but didn't look up. So he whispered in my ear, "Gold."

What was he talking about? How could gold fuel balloons?

"Come on, watch them," he said. He nudged me with his elbow.

I grudgingly looked up. I bit my lip.

The grace of the scene in front of me almost hurt. The sight of so many balloons elegantly taking off took my breath away, as they raced away in so much space. I'd seen the world through the prism of imprisonment for so long that I couldn't believe such beauty existed.

"Who is in those balloons?" I asked the prospector.

He shook his head. "I don't know," he responded. "Only those who can get the fuel to go."

I nodded. The rich. Or super-rich. It figured.

The prospector laughed. Was he laughing at me? I hadn't heard laughter in so long. "Don't be so sure of yourself," he said. "What did I say fueled the balloons?"

"Gold," I responded.

"Yes, but it's a more precious gold than you find on the earth." he replied.

"What are you talking about?" I asked him. "Platinum?".

He sighed. "Can't you guess what I prospect?" he asked.

I shook my head, still staring at the balloons. "How should I know?" I replied. "You haven't given me a clue."

"I showed up in your cell, didn't I?" he responded.

"So, what? Didn't you say yourself there's always a window?"

He laughed. Again! Laughter. I looked at him. His eyes crinkled, closed, his mouth and whiskered chin grinned. He was right. There was no way I could photograph laughter.

But why would I want to? I asked him, "Why would I want to photograph laugher? You're just making fun of me. Laughter can be so cruel....that it's gruesome."

The prospector nodded, still smiling. "Yes, it can be. But I don't consider that pure laughter. Just like there's pure and impure air and water, there's pure and impure laughter. What you're talking about is the impure kind-- sarcasm, insecurity. The laughter I'm talking about....well, if wind is air in motion, what is laughter?"

"I don't know!" I responded. He was wearing me out. He kept answering my questions with more questions.

"Get up," he said, "We're going to go up in a balloon."

I seemed to have no choice. I didn't know my way back to the prison from here anyway.

I got up.

**

I shut my eyes.

The view from above was too painful to look at.

The earth looked so gentle, unassuming, so innocent. Rivers sparkled in the yawning dawn. The tallest of trees were tiny, and even the mightiest of mountains only slight mounds of earth. The moon danced in incandescent pools of reflected light.

Rainbows kept appearing out of nowhere, only to disappear just as quickly. As if spectrums of light peeked through the clouds, but were too shy to stay around for a while.

To my surprise, without thinking, I blew a kiss to the earth.

The prospector noticed my wonder. "Do you know," he asked me, "that at every second, somewhere upon the earth, a rainbow appears?"

I looked at him in feigned disbelief. Because I knew how much I wanted to believe him.

I thought of a question for him. An intelligent question. So I asked him, "You said gold fuels these balloons, right?"

He nodded.

"But so many of the people in the balloons are kids, and many of them look so poor. How can they afford"-

The prospector leaned upon the edge of the oversized crate in which we found ourselves. He sighed. The airs seemed to sigh with him. "I hardly know what to do with you. You're not listening at all."

That got me mad. Of course I'd been listening. I said as much, and added, "You told me gold fuels these balloons!".

"Suppose, son," he said, turning to me pensively, "gold lay scattered upon the earth, on beaches, in deserts, and sand had to mined from deep caverns in the earth, arduously. Which would be more precious?"

"Well, obviously, sand," I replied.

"So when I say, gold, I'm really talking about something so exquisitely precious it's invaluable." The prospector turned back, and looked at times upon the earth, at times up at the sky.

I still didn't get him. I was mad at him for talking to me in circles, and in spite of myself, angry at the enchantment of the earth. The world didn't have a right to be so stunning.

The universe had no business taking my breath away.

I almost told him so, when he threw his hat up in the air. I watched it rise, surprised he'd throw it away. He seemed to show so much affection for it.

He started speaking. He seemed to have forgotten all about his hat. I turned to him. "Look, I'm just going to have to tell you," he said, " Which doesn't mean you'll get what I say. I was hoping you'd figure it out. But we have to land soon. The mares of night will soon be snared by the light of day, and you have to return home." I noticed he didn't say, "prison".

I couldn't help it. I felt so ashamed of myself.

The prospector said kindly, "There is more joy buried deep in one soul than exists in the whole world."

I was about to protest at such a sappy statement when he repeated once more, loudly, in a firmer tone, "THERE IS MORE JOY BURIED DEEP IN ONE SOUL THAN EXISTS IN THE WHOLE WORLD."

He looked at me, sadly, and said, "And there's your gold. That's what I prospect. I dig for the gold hidden deep within a man's soul."

He started bringing the balloon down, and said, "It's the most difficult treasure to mine in the whole world."

And added, "No one's proven that statement more right than yourself."

We landed.

And hopped upon the waiting mares of the night.

**

The prospector was silent on the ride back.

I didn't know what to say. I was feeling a messy mass of emotion, and I was ashamed at hating the earth for its beauty. I even hated the prospector for being so joyful. God, I'd been in prison so long.

Finally, I took a deep breath, and said, "Sir?".

The prospector looked surprised. "Yes?" he said, turning to me.

"So, the people in the balloons-the adults, kids, all of them-they got their balloons to fly upon the ....gold.... in their souls?"

The prospector nodded. "Inside the joy buried deep within a man's soul, are nuggets of golden hope. It's hope that blows up the balloons and makes them fly. No matter how horrible their conditions on earth, a lot of people feel they have to keep their souls alive. So their hope and hidden dreams make them fly." He paused, thoughtfully. "You know, it's funny. Dreams don't stand a chance in this world. And yet, nothing seems to stop people from dreaming."

Again, the idea was too beautiful to be true. Balloons fueled by nothing but hope? I tried to believe it, I wanted to...

We were both quiet for a while, secure upon the mares of the night. Their canter felt like an otherworldly incantation, lulling me into a safe, steady, sleep. I woke when the prospector asked me, "Shall I let you in upon a secret?"

"Why not?" I said. "Who the hell am I gonna tell?"

He ignored my cynicism. He spoke, in the deep-textured voice of a confidant, "I'm going to tell you the secret of prospectors-it's their dream. It's what keeps them going. After all they have the hardest job in the world. And you know a prospector reaches every man in the world at some point in their lives. You just don't always recognize them as prospectors. We do miss some people...." he sighed, continuing, "it's our greatest source of disappointment. But we keep trying."

Why was he spilling his soul to me? Maybe, after all, he was only a simple fool.

If he knew my thoughts-which he most likely did-he ignored them. He kept speaking, "This is the goal of prospectors. We want to ....make the world laugh!" He threw back his head in delight. He looked at me, his sparkling, seeking, eyes wide open. Wider than the space between the bars of my cell.

"We want to make the world LAUGH!" he said again. "We have a dream, where everyone on earth laughs at the same time." I was about to laugh in disbelief, but he kept talking, without a stop. "Can you imagine? Everyone laughing at the exact same moment? A gazillion giggles?"

"We'd make world leaders laugh-although I don't yet know how. Then, soldiers on all sides of all wars would put down their weapons and laugh, inciting prisoners to laugh. Refugees would burst out laughing. News crews would broadcast this-anchors would laugh, spectators would laugh, internet junkies would laugh."

"Air-traffic controllers would catch this on the news, and they would laugh, prompting pilots to laugh, prompting their passengers to laugh. For you know son, bacteria and viruses are the weakest of contagions compared to laughter."

"And then," he said, without stopping, "perhaps a doctor-- working with AIDS patients!-- would get off the plane, and keep laughing on his way to work. At work nurses would laugh upon seeing the doctor. AIDS patients, in spite of all their pain, would laugh!".

The prospector nearly had tears in his eyes. No, he did have tears in his eyes. He brushed one away. "Can you imagine, how it would spread? Faster than a virus. We'd have a pandemic of joy. And then people would all be participating in a pristine moment of pure joy, untainted reality, as clear and real as a heartfelt prayer. The world outside would fall way, and you'd have a moment of....a moment of......" he paused, thinking. A moment later, he looked at me in triumph and said, "A moment of senseless intensity ."

"Do you think," he asked me, in complete seriousness, "if six or seven billion people laughed at once, it would cause an earthquake? Or if there is life out in space, could they hear us? Can you imagine, the laughter of seven billion people? Would they find us, or be scared away?"

The prospector laughed in delight. He laughed and laughed.

And laughed.

My God, what a fool this man was.

He looked at me, kept laughing for a bit, until his face fell.

"You know, son," the prospector said, very soberly, "I was hoping...you haven't laughed once upon this journey. Not once. I was hoping....well, in prospecting terms, you're fools gold. I was blinded, I made a mistake."

I swallowed and fought back tears. My whole soul screamed. That wasn't true. That wasn't true. That was not true.

"It's not true?" the prospector asked, once more reading my mind.

I shook my head, looked at him. My face was covered in tears.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Then prove it," he said. "Find my hat."

And my mare-of-the-night dropped me home.

**

I tried to forget about the prospector at first. After all, he was such a silly, stupid man.

But I couldn't. I couldn't forget the dancing balloons taking off from the fields of which we only dreamed. And I couldn't forget the sight of the earth from high in the impossible-to-photograph wind.

So I finally started looking for his hat.

That's when I panicked.

How could I find his hat? He had tossed it high up in the air. I was locked in my cell. How could I find it? I started getting really scared, but then remembered that if he dared me to find it, I must be able to.

I looked in every corner of my cell. I looked in my pockets. Although I knew you couldn't fit a hat in a pocket.

I looked upon the ceiling. I looked between my prison bars. I lost all sense of time in looking for his hat.

Then, pained by my panic, I wondered if he'd been putting me on? Was he making a fool of me? Was he laughing at me, at this instant?

I swirled in my cell. How could I find his hat? I couldn't, it was impossible, just impossible.

Suddenly I stopped swirling, stood still. I got a hold of myself-thereby putting up another bar in my prison-and decided there was no way in hell I'd let anyone make a fool of me. From this moment on, I swore to forget the prospector and his damn tattered hat. He didn't really care. I started singing to myself, "Solitaire, truth or dare,, no one really truly cares..."

And suddenly, I heard his voice in reply, "There is more joy buried deep in one soul than exists in the whole world."

Was he here? Where? I turned around and around in my cell, until I started feeling dizzy. Was I going to fall? I sat down, and put my head in my hands.

And found his hat. It had been on my head the whole time!

I took it off in disbelief. Had I been wearing it this entire time?

I looked at the tattered prospector's hat. There was no question that he'd been a prospector for decades. Maybe centuries.

I was turning it around in my hands, when I suddenly caught a glimmer inside.

I peered inside the hat.

I caught my breath. A compass!

I took the hat to the window, and looked at the compass. It was an ancient instrument-a sort of compass and world map combined. There was no doubt, he'd been a prospector for years.

I looked at it closely. I couldn't believe it.

The directions on the compass and pinpoints on the map pointed right towards me!

And as suddenly I realized I'd never asked him to come in the first place. He'd come of his own will. I'd never asked him to come!

I started thinking, even though something in me told me not to think too much. If I'd never asked him to come, that must mean he must have had some hope for me. He was an experienced prospector-he wouldn't have come if he didn't think there was some joy hidden within me. If he didn't think he could find a single nugget of gold.

Within me? To find a nugget of joy within me? The idea was so ridiculous. Within me?

And suddenly, to my utter surprise, my mouth started moving. My cheeks started spreading apart. A grin started grinning. To find joy within me! It was a joke! A ludicrous, stupid joke.

To find joy within me? What a laugh! He was an absolute, unequivocal fool.

I threw the hat in the air. What an idiot he was! To think he'd find joy in me.

I started hearing a sound I hadn't made in ages. The walls of my prison started quivering, then dancing. Would I be able to break through?

For, to my utter surprise, I was laughing.

I was laughing.

It was impossible.

But true. I was laughing! I was laughing, and laughing. I started laughing so much my eyes started tearing up. How could the prospector have expected to find joy in me? In me?

It was a ridiculous joke, how could he be so nave? And I started laughing at him, at the world, at myself.

I laughed so hard the walls of the prison cracked from the sound waves of such a strange sound. I broke through the broken walls, and started to run. The fields of which I only dreamed danced before my eyes.

But first I picked up a black felt pen with which I'd been marking my days on the walls of my cell. Black elongated marks-four in a row, then a fifth diagonal-crisscrossed my prison.

I needed that pen now.

I ran faster than the mares of night, the pen in one hand, the prospector's hat in another. I found the fields of which I only dreamed in a flash.

The balloons still danced leisurely in the sky.

I started looking for the prospector. Where was he?

I looked and looked, until I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"So you found my hat," the prospector said.

I turned, and gave it to him. He smiled at my smile.

"How did you know, to come to me?" I asked. "The compass..."

The prospector shrugged his shoulders. "It's what I've always done," he said, "I toss my hat high in the air while I laugh, and when it returns there's a compass direction inside. And that's where I go to hunt for gold."

I started to laugh, and said, "You're such a fool, to think you'd find gold in me. It's such a joke!"

The prospector inspected me with a guarded gaze. "But you're laughing," he said.

"I'm laughing at myself," I said. "I can't believe I took the world and myself so seriously that I let it ruin me."

Understanding dawned in the prospector's eyes.

"I can't change the world," I said, "I can only change myself."

The prospector smiled. "And once you do," he said, "the world will start to shift, imperceptibly, at first. But as I told you, laughter is the most virulent of contagions. Your joy will spread, and before you know it, you'll have started an epidemic."

He started laughing, "And you know, that's what changes the world."

I nodded, and said, "I came to tell you, I know what laughter is."

"So tell me," the prospector said, putting his hat back snugly on his head.

"Laughter," I said, laughing, " Wind is air in motion. Laughter is the soul in motion. It's the damn dreaming dance of the soul."

I was laughing so hard I leaned my hand on his shoulder for support. "And a man's soul's gotta dance."

The prospector grinned in wonder. As if he'd just struck gold.

"Listen," I said, "last time, you fueled the balloon. I just hopped on. This time, let me."

The prospector nodded.

"But first, I have to do something," I said. I ran to the balloon, took the felt marker from my pocket, and wrote on the side of the balloon, "The Discovery of Laughter."

"Are you ready?" I said, as the prospector hopped on.

He nodded.

We both burst out laughing, as the balloon lifted up, up, and away, soaring high above the fields of which we only dreamed.

We found ourselves gliding through a ball of dancing balloons, filled with children and young-at-heart grownups, all fueled by their adamant dreams.

The prospector tossed his hat high in the air. Where would he go next?

He caught the hat, and turned to me. "After you, son," he said, " I think I can handle anyone."

I burst out laughing, because in that moment I had no doubt.

More joy existed in my soul than existed in the whole world.

--

Three quotes I love:

A society that didn't dream would be dead in two weeks.-William Burroughs

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world-that is the myth of the atomic age-as in being able to remake ourselves.-Mahatma Gandhi

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars-Oscar Wilde

COPYRIGHT 2007 NARTANA PREMACHANDRA