In a small village, in some snowy mountains, lived a joke. She had arms and legs and a face, but she was a joke all the same. Not in the metaphorical sense. In the literal sense. When she walked into a room, her very presence told a story. People would shrug or gasp or sometimes laugh when she was around, but not only because of how she looked or what she said. It was because of who she was.
She was, to be precise, a dark and disturbing joke. Not excessively disturbing, but certainly not family dinner material. Consequently, she couldn’t go certain places. To schools, for instance. To churches, synagogues, and mosques, obviously. Basically anywhere kids and sensitive folks were likely to be hanging out.
So she stayed by the railroad tracks, or in dusty old motels, or at truck stops and in back-alley bars. She was appreciated in those places, but she didn’t particularly like them. They felt dangerous, and the laughs she found there were nasty ones, full of teeth and halitosis.
“I’d like to be a different kind of joke,” she said one night as she slept in her cabin in the mountains. “A pleasant joke. A respectable joke.”
The next morning, she set about transforming herself. She traveled to the valley where the puns lived and spied on them and their innocuous wordplay. She exercised, hoping a healthy body would lead to healthy humor. She burned her entire wardrobe, gave herself a makeover, draped herself in primary colors, in vibrant, inoffensive garb.
But she didn’t feel any different. She still felt dark. She still felt disturbing.
Then one day, everything changed. She woke up and it was like a switch had been flipped. She felt lighter. She felt … wholesome. Maybe all her efforts had paid off, but had needed time to incubate and take effect.
To see if she had truly changed, she decided to show herself in public, so she went to the local schoolhouse. She knocked on the door.
“Who’s there?” a voice answered.
“A joke,” she replied.
“A joke who?”
“A clean joke,” she said.
There was silence for a moment. And then a reply. “Well, that’s not very funny. Why are you wasting our time? We’ve got educating to do here.”
The reaction puzzled the joke. If only they had let her in, they would have realized that she was funny and, for once, agreeable. A simply wonderful joke.
She went home and considered what she had said wrong. Was it the words? Was it the tone? She hadn’t even entered the school, so they couldn’t have basked in her newness, in her pureness. Perhaps it was a mistake, so she gave it another shot a few hours later.
Knock knock.
“Who’s there?” the voice answered.
“A joke.”
“A joke who?”
“A joke that children will love.”
“Don’t waste our time.”
It continued like this all day. The joke rethought her approach, knocked again, and when they asked, “A joke who?” she said, “A joke that will brighten your day,” and “A joke both witty and wise,” and “A joke from the heart.” And every time, the voice responded with some variation of “go away.”
The joke knocked on the doors of other wholesome places, such as antique shops and petting zoos, but they turned her away too. She didn’t understand it.
She fell into a deep depression. All her efforts had been for nothing. She figured she’d just accept her life as it once was. That night, she went down to the local tavern where she’d always been welcome.
Knock knock.
“Who’s there?” shouted the tavern keeper.
The joke had been here so many times before, she decided not to answer. She barged right in. But this wasn’t like those other times, and she was not treated to the typical hoots and hollers. Blank, confused faces stared back at her as the door swung shut.
“What happened to you?” the tavern keeper asked her when she approached the bar.
“What do you mean?” the joke replied.
Polishing a glass, the tavern keeper eyed her up and down. “You’ve changed. You’ve become a … knock-knock joke?”
The joke didn’t really know what a knock-knock joke was, but it sounded perfectly pleasant. “I guess I am. So whattya think?”
The tavern keeper lowered his eyes. “I liked you better when you had a punch line.”
There were cheers of “Ain’t that the truth!” and “You said it!” from the tavern’s regulars. The joke was stunned. No punch line? A joke without a punch line was a joke without a soul.
“I … I…”
“I think it’s best if you left,” the tavern keeper said. “You’re making us uncomfortable.”
The joke had no choice. She turned tail and walked out. But she lingered by the tavern door for a moment, contemplating whether to make a more memorable entrance. As she held her hand in front of the door, she realized that she didn’t have a clue who she really was. She realized that while she might have cleaned up her act, she was soulless, and for the first time in her life, she was not funny.
So the joke climbed onto the roof of the tavern. She stood there and tried to yell her name into the breeze to test her own existence, but the words that came out made no sense. So she jumped off, which, funnily enough, was pretty dark and disturbing.