The Humbug: A Short Story

Milo, Tock, and the Humbug all sat in the small vehicle as they drove further and further down the road. It was quite beautiful out; there were miles, and miles of open fields with tall, luscious grass dancing in the wind, small flowers were beaming with brilliant, spectacular colors. Bees buzzed around the flowers and collected honey, the sky was a beautiful shade of blue, the sun was shining high in the sky, and just the right amount of huge fluffy clouds hardly sheltered the powerful rays. The Humbug and Tock were casually discussing their favorite letters in the alphabet.

“The letter ‘S,’” the Humbug continued, “is my personal favorite, of course. So savory, so scrumptious. Spicy, yet sweet. And maybe even a little salty, if you were

to add seasoning.”
“You don't say,” replied Tock absentmindedly, as he scratched his ear with his hind leg, “Personally I would have to say that my favorite letter is ‘D.’ It's dainty, divine, delectable, and delightfully delicious, in my opinion of course.”
“How incredibly distasteful,” huffed the Humbug “‘D’ is more of a disappointment if you asked me.”
“Well—! Uh—! S’s… Stink!” Tock barked back, slightly embarrassed. He didn't appreciate when people were offensive about the things he enjoyed.
Milo chuckled quietly, What a silly thing to argue about, he thought. However, his smile melted away and he felt as though the laughter in this throat was sucked directly out of him. Suddenly, the scenery didn't seem as beautiful as it did just a moment ago, nothing seemed that great anymore. The small fluffy white clouds, began to stretch out and cover the whole sky. Everything turned grey and it began to drizzle. Tock and the Humbug grew quiet as well and everything seemed to move slower.
Tock raised his head slightly and let the small drops of water trickle down his cheeks. “How strange,” he mumbled, “I could have sworn just a moment ago everything seemed a lot more… enjoyable.”
The Humbug grumbled something under his breath. Milo let out a long, somber sigh as he slumped down in his car seat. Suddenly, the car began to spit and choke and hack and it stopped in the middle of the road. Everyone sat in silence for a moment, as if they couldn't believe the car had just run out of gas. “How miserable…” Groaned the Humbug after what felt like an hour, or maybe it was only 1 minute. Time sure does move slow when your in a bad mood.
Everyone slid out of the car and stood there, blinking and thinking about what they should do. Milo looked down one side of the road, then the other. There was nothing as far as his eyes could see. “Oh dear,” Milo grunted, “well we might as well start pushing the car down the road, maybe there's a town nearby.”

After a while of grim grunting and mournful moaning, the group had finally reached a small village. Very small. All the little houses were hardly 4 feet tall and everything was miniature. Milo spotted a few small troll like creatures. These creatures were hardly over 6 inches tall and just a little bit wider. Their arms were so long they dragged at their sides and their noses were pointy, they had huge, wide feet, long, floppy ears and were covered head to toe with scruffy, brown fur. They were funny looking things, that's for sure. Good thing Milo was in such a bad mood, it would be incredibly rude of him to laugh at these little beasts.
Milo tip toed cautiously, as to not startle the bizarre creatures. “Excuse me,” he whispered softly, worried he would break their teeny tiny eardrums, “but could anyone help tell us where we are? Our car has run out of gas a little while back.”
“Huh?” one grumbled, he looked up slowly with a blank expression, “oh, hello stranger. Looks like you've found yourselves down in The Dumps.”
“The Dumps?” Milo asked, “what a strange name to call some place—” Milo stopped himself, however—for ‘The Dumps’ was an incredibly appropriate name for a place as dismal and gloomy as this.
“It wasn't always called what it is, and it wasn't always as it is,” inquired one of the tiny beats, “It used to be called Sillydelphia, where all jokes and laughter came from.” Milo, Tock and the Humbug all huddled around to hear the little critter’s story, “This town used to be full of life, happiness and smiles, where everyone was always laughing and sharing jokes—for this was the place where jokes were grown.

The best jokes were taken to Silly and Billy, the two brothers who ruled this small village and they would juice the jokes into drinks and they'd share it with the rest of the town. When people drank the juice, they would laugh. The more they laughed, the more laughing gas was produced, and the laughing gas was used to fuel the town. One day Silly and Billy decided that they wanted the town to be taken seriously, so they locked up all the laugher and jokes in the Serious Safe. After all the silliness was taken away, the village people and the town itself became less lively and more languorous. The more Silly and Billy refused to show any signs of laughter, the colder they became, until eventually their skin became tough like a shell. Now they never laugh or smile at

anything.”
“The town hasn't been the same ever since,” said one troll.
“How awful,” Tock whimpered.
“Truly dreadful,” said the Humbug, scratching the end of his cane to his forehead.
“I do wish we could have all the laughter and jokes back,” sighed another troll.
“Hey!” Said one of the creatures, almost excitedly, “What if you go talk to Silly and Billy and ask them to give the jokes back?”
“Us?” Milo tilted his head slightly, “but how will we reason with them? They're as cold as stone!”
“Crack them up!” another critter cried, “tell them the funniest jokes you can think of, the laughter will crack through their shells and they'll be back to normal.”
After a few minutes of discussion, the group had finally decided that they would help the village.

“But we don't know any jokes,” admitted Milo, timidly.

“Yeah, I'm not too good with jokes myself,” Tock looked down at his front paws and scratched at a patch of dead grass.

“NONSENSE!” the Humbug exclaimed, “We decided we would help these small beings, we should try our very best to do so.”

And with that, the group marched up to a big building—if big can describe a building hardly 6 feet tall. The door seemed round and squiggly, unlike most square doors Milo had seen. Hanging in the middle of the door was a bronze smiley face door knocker, as if it was frozen in time, laughing out loud. There was an old, bronze placard sitting just above the door with a muddy, white sheet drifting over it, flowing quietly in the wind. It was so incredibly muddy and rusty, you couldn't quite tell what it said. The Humbug lifted the raggedy sheet and smeared his hand over the placard to wipe away the muck. It read:

SILLY AND

BILLY'S
JOKE JUICERY

“This must be the place.” Tock mumbled, mostly to himself. Milo kneeled down on his hands and knees and pinched the miniature knocker and knocked 3 times, very slowly. Knock, knock, knock.
Almost immediately, the eyes on the small knocker clicked open and a pare of beady, little eyes peered through the hole. “Who's there?!” A raspy voice came from behind the door, it sounded as if the owner of the voice had inhaled incredible amounts of helium and gurgled warm milk for hours.
“My name is Milo, this is Tock and over here is the Humbug,” Milo explained, “we've come to ask about the jokes? The towns people say you've been keeping them and they'd like you to—”
The strange voice hacked in disgust, “WE ARE NOT GIVING BACK THE JOKES!!!!” shrieked the voice, they covered their ears.
Just then, another voice just as shrill and gurgle–y came to the door and said, “Who is it, Billy? Who's at the door? Don't they know we're no longer continuing our juicing business?” They seemed incredibly agitated.
“My name is Milo, this is Tock and the Humbug,” Milo repeated himself for the new voice, “I’m terribly sorry for pestering you but we were—”
“They want jokes!” the first voice interrupted.
“What do they want jokes for?! Don't they know we want to be taken seriously?!” the second voice snapped.
“I tried to tell them, Silly, I told them, I said, ‘WE ARE NOT GIVING BACK THE JOKES!!!!’” Billy said, eagerly.
“Please sirs,” Milo pleaded desperately, “the town is falling apart! Without any jokes to make laughter, there's no more laughing gas, and without any laughing gas, there's no fuel to get the things that need to be done, done! If you would just let them rebuild Sillydelphia…” His voice trailed off slightly.
There was a long pause from Silly and Billy, so long Milo almost thought that they had left already. Eventually the sound of clicking locks and clanking chains began rattling from the other side of the door. It took 3 whole minutes for Silly and Billy to unlock the dozens of chains and locks on the door. Finally, the door creaked open slowly, revealing two tiny trolls one with big ears and a pinched nose, the other with and huge nose and tiny ears and both had rough, rock-like skin and their faces were frozen in a sad, numb expression. “Come inside,” they grumbled in unison.
Milo and Humbug ducked down and squeezed through the small door, then sat, legs crisscrossed, their heads brushed the roof. Tock wasn’t small enough to squeeze through, so instead he lay on his belly and watched through the door. The building looked old, tired, the wall paper was stained and peeling, there were holes in the floor and old, rusty machines sat, lifeless, in the corner of the room—they looked like they hadn't been used in years. “Welcome to the Joke Juicery,” said Billy, sniffling and wiping his huge nose on his arm.
“What happened?” Milo asked, glancing around the room.
“We stopped working,” Silly sighed glumly, “You see, we were so silly and jokey and goofy, people never took us seriously. It was quite embarrassing. So we decided that we wanted to be taken seriously, and we locked up all the jokes and all the juices and all the laughter in the Serious Safe, never to be seen, heard, tasted or used ever again.”
“But now,” Billy continued, “everything is so dead, lifeless, depressing. It truly is a dreadful sight.”
“Indeed it is,” the Humbug huffed, prodding his cane at one of the rusty juicing machines.
“I do wish I could laugh again... Or hear the sound of laughter… Or hear another joke…” Silly’s voice trailed off.
“Why not just open up the safe?” Milo suggested, “Then you can share the jokes again, make more laughing gas to fuel the machines and then make even more joke juice.”
“You can rebuild the town!” Tock yelped through the door frame.
“I'm afraid that the only way to open the safe is to have us laugh,” Silly pointed out.
“But we're just too sad about the whole ordeal to laugh at anything,” continued Billy with a pout.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Milo said, thinking of ways to comfort the two brothers.