It
was a really strange feeling to be back there after all this time.
The campus was almost exactly the same as he remembered it, but it
still felt very alien to him, much like the very first time he had
set foot here. Aidan paused on the way to the campus bar to take a
look at the main university building. This place been his whole life
for four years, but that was a long time ago now, all that remained
were a bunch of scattered memories and a slight twinge of nostalgia
for simpler times. A few students walked past him, not paying him
any heed, probably not even realizing he didn't belong there. It was
6:00pm, so there weren't as many students around as there would have
been during the afternoon, and most of those who remained were
heading to the bar or the dorms. Aidan resumed walking down the
familiar trail that lead to the campus bar as he had many times
before, feeling very out of place.
Nisha
wasn't with him tonight, he had told her about it, but she said was
going to visit her parents that night. He hadn't really expected she
would be very interested, this was his world, not hers. Things had
been a bit difficult between them lately, and he knew it was largely
his own fault. Ever since he had failed to get that promotion he
hadn't really felt up to much, and his malaise was spreading to her,
too, she'd been very quiet lately. He hoped tonight would help him
get over this and get back on track, but now he was starting to have
second thoughts. Just what did he hope to accomplish here? There
was no way he was going to start a new career in comedy, that was
just a silly pipe dream, now more than ever. Perhaps he just wanted
to relive the past for a little while, a time in his life where
everything seemed full of promise.
The
campus bar had actually changed quite a lot, though some of that was
probably for the show. They'd moved the eating tables out of the
main area and onto the patio outside to make room for chairs facing
the stage, only a handful of two-seating tables remained inside. It
was still about an hour before the show, but he needed to check in
with the comedy team. He had spoken to them on the phone a few days
ago, but he had no idea what they looked like, so he asked someone
who was working at the bar.
“There's
one of them right now”, she said, pointing to someone who had just
entered the bar. It turned out he was actually the leader of the
troupe, and he greeted Aidan and explained a bit more about the show
that they were going to do.
“It's
set up like a game”, he said, “there's a bunch of different
topics and we give people points, but there really aren't any winners
and losers, it's all just to keep the audience entertained. Oh, and
it's all impromptu, so no one knows the topics beforehand except me.”
He
was still setting up chairs, Aidan wondered just how many people they
expected to show up. “Anyway”, he said, shaking Aidan's hand,
“thanks for coming to join us and I hope you'll have fun”.
Aidan
hadn't eaten yet, so he decided to order something at the bar. He
didn't want anything that might risk bothering him during the show,
so he chose the chicken fingers, just as he had dozens of times
before. He sat down at one of the few remaining tables and a server
brought his food out to him a few minutes later. As he sat next to
the window eating his dinner, he couldn't help but be reminded of the
last time he had eaten here, in the middle of his final set of exams
in his last year.
“God,
that last question was a killer”, Tina said, shaking her head. “I
didn't even finish my answer, I'm going to do so bad.”
He
shrugged. “Lots of people were still writing at the end, you're
not alone.”
“I
guess”, she said, not sounding all that relieved. “Have you
given any thought to what you're going to do after graduation? Have
you applied anywhere?”
“I'll
figure that out after finals are all over.”
“I've
finally decided that I'm going to go into writing. I've already got
an interview with a business magazine two weeks from now. If
everything goes well and my transcript holds up they might hire me
even before graduation.”
“That's
great”, he said, idly munching away on his fries.
She
looked out the window at the campus grounds. It was quiet, only the
people who were writing exams were here now, and some were even
already finished. “It's really all coming to an end. In a few
weeks we'll be leaving this place for good, and then we'll have to go
out and get jobs. This is our last crack at university life.”
“I
won't really miss it”, Aidan said, “this last term has been
really boring, I can't wait to get out there and start doing real
work.”
“I
guess so...” she said, trailing off. They ate in silence for a few
minutes.
“Aidan...”
she blurted out, “please, tell me what I did wrong.”
“What,
on your exam?”, he asked, flustered.
“No,
that night we were together. Why didn't you go through with it? I
really thought you liked me.”
He
sighed. “I do like you, just not that way. When I thought about
taking our relationship to that next level it just didn't feel
right.”
“Maybe
you were just nervous”, she said, hopefully. “We could go back
to my dorm room and try again. It is our last week together.”
“I
don't think that's a good idea. Besides, it's not like this is the
last time we'll ever see each other, we'll still be around after
graduation. We can still see each other if we make time for it.”
“I
guess you're right”, she said, looking down at her hands. “But
still, I don't get it. We get along well, don't we? We have fun
together, we have a lot to talk about, and I know you find me
attractive. What more am I missing?”
He
shook his head. “It's not you, Tina, it's me. I don't know, I
guess I'm just looking for something special. I can't really put it
into words.”
“Well,
I hope you find it”, she said, a tear rolling down her cheek.
“...I gotta go.”
Aidan
frowned. It wasn't exactly the kind of happy memory that put him in
the mood to tell jokes. He finished up his food and went for a
little walk outside to try to put it out of his mind. He tried to
think about some of the jokes from the comic he did for the school
paper, but he ended up thinking about Nisha instead. What was it
about her that set her apart from Tina? Was it just that dream that
he'd had? No, it couldn't be, there was just something special about
her that he couldn't quite put his finger upon. He'd known that she
was the one from the first time he'd talked to her, even before he'd
had the dream again. He hadn't ever told her about his dream, it
would just seem ridiculous, though she did come up with “Dream
Girl”, so maybe she would understand. Still, there was no way he
could ever tell her about it without proposing to her, so it would
have to wait for now. He looked down at his watch again. It was
nearly time for the show to start. He walked back to the bar, which
was starting to fill up with people now, and met up with the rest of
the troupe. “It's go time”, he thought to himself, suddenly
feeling a bit nervous.
“Good
evening, and welcome to 'Impromptu? I hardly know you!'. I'm your
host, Paul Mitchell. Let's meet tonight's contestants: He's got a
degree in mathematics and laughematics, it's John! Her singing voice
brings a tear to your eye, sometimes from laughter, it's Cindy! A
longtime veteran of the show, (seriously, when are you going to
graduate?), it's Dave! And tonight's special guest, a former writer
for our campus paper and our first member to ever get a real job,
it's Aidan!”
There
was a round of applause from the crowd, which was a lot larger than
he expected. There must have been sixty or seventy people out there
now, it was almost like he was doing a real stand-up show. He took a
deep breath to calm himself, and he spotted Dan and Nicole sitting in
the second row. “Great”, he thought, “now if this goes badly
I'll never be able to live it down.”
The
host quickly introduced the rules of the game as the four of them
took their seats towards the back of the little stage.
“Our
first game is called 'Long Story Short'”, he said, moving right
along. “Everyone knows how much it sucks to be listening to
someone tell a really long story, after a minute or two no matter how
good the punchline is there's no way it's going to be worth it,
right? Well, you're in luck, because in this game we've taken out
all the boring middle stuff. Set-up, punchline, instant
satisfaction. Tonight's topic is 'a funny thing happened to me on
the way here', make us laugh and you get points. John, why don't you
start things off?”
John
got up from his chair and walked to the centre of the stage. “A
funny thing happened to me on the way here”, he began, “I was
driving in my car and I found out that my brake line had been cut. I
slammed on the brakes really hard and, long story short, I learned
that it's not against the law to run over a goose.”
The
audience laughed and the host assigned him 200 points. Mercifully,
Aidan got to go last, which gave him time to think about his answer.
“The humour comes from surprise”, he thought, “I've got to make
sure the punchline is something you wouldn't see coming.”
Finally
it came to his turn. “A funny thing happened to me on the way
here. I was taking the bus, and we got caught up in terrible
traffic, and then the bus broke down, and I thought 'we're never
going to make it here on time'. Long story short we DID make it here
on time.”
There
was a little laughter from the crowd but not as much as he had hoped.
“I thought that was clever”, he thought, a bit frustrated. For
his efforts he was assigned a paltry 50 points, but it didn't seem
like they were being recorded anywhere.
The
game was definitely pretty tough, even though he usually got to go
last it was hard to come up with great jokes on the spot like that,
the others obviously had a lot more practice than he did. He hadn't
totally frozen up yet, at least, but he hadn't been getting a ton of
laughs either.
“Our
next game is 'Crappy Superheroes'. The world is in danger! The
forces of evil have stolen a nuclear missile and they're about to
launch it from their secret compound! Unfortunately, all of the cool
and awesome superheroes are busy, so we've only got these guys. Each
of you is going to come up with your own crappy superhero and then
we're going to try to save the world from evil.”
“Oh
no!” he continued, in a different voice, “evil forces have stolen
a nuclear missile! Who will save us?!”
“Don't
worry, it is I, Lady Licorice!” Cindy said, jumping to the
forefront. “Behold my amazing licorice-flavoured hair!”
“Is
that a superpower, or just a strange brand of shampoo? Still, it's
good to have you here!”
“Aha!
It is I who will save the day, The Prankster!” He reached out to
shake the host's hand, then made a buzzing sound and shook his arm
vigorously. “Ha ha, got you!”
“G-oood
to have you he-eere”, the host continued. “Isn't there someone
else?”
“Yeah,
yeah, I'm coming”, said Dave. “It's me, the Octogenarian. In my
day, we didn't need superpowers, we solved all of our problems with a
little old-fashioned elbow grease and ingenuity.”
“That's
great”, the host said, “we just need one more.”
Aidan
had only a few seconds left to come up with a superhero. He was
drawing a blank, so he just went with the first thing that came to
mind.
“And
don't forget me, Dream Boy! I have the power to enter people's
dreams as they sleep! ...Please tell me it's night time right now.”
“It
will be somewhere in the world”, the host said, eliciting a laugh
from the crowd. “Now, go and stop the missile launch!”
They
walked towards the left of the stage and entered again.
“Look”,
said Lady Licorice, “there's the entrance to their secret base, but
there's a guard! We'll need to get the combination to the lock from
him!” The host quickly sat down and became the guard.
“Leave
this to me”, said The Octogenarian, “I know how to talk to young
people.”
He
walked up to the host, “Now see here sonny, in my day, we didn't go
about stealing missiles. If you wanted to get a missile, you went
and got yerself a paper route, and if you worked real hard by the end
of the week you'd have a shiny nickel! In those days, a nickel was
enough to get ya a pack of gum, which we generally favoured since
missiles hadn't been invented yet. My favourite flavour of gum was
plain, since flavours hadn't been invented yet either...”
The
host started snoring while The Octogenarian rambled on. “Now's
your chance, Dream Boy”, she said, “you can go into his dream and
get the combination!”
“I'll
try”, Aidan replied, and he walked over to the host and put his
hands on the host's head.
“Are
you getting anything?”, the Prankster asked.
“It's
no good!”, he replied, “he's dreaming about being a race car
driver!”
The
audience laughed. “Check the number of the side of the car!”,
Lady Licorice suggested.
“I
can't see it from here, we have to get him out of the car.”
“Leave
that to me”, said the Prankster. “With this glass of warm water
he'll be desperate for a pit stop, if you know what I mean” He
took the host's hand and acted as though he was dunking it into a
glass of water.
“Well,
is that helping any?”
“Nooo!
Auugh! You idiot! They just go in the suit!! Oh, the humanity!”
The
audience erupted with laughter, even the host had to stifle a laugh
to stay in character. Afterwards, Lady Licorice tried to feed the
sleeping guard her licorice hair, which made him throw up and crash,
and in the end the missile was launched and the Octogenarian showed
them his secret plan to save the day: “duck and cover”.
Thankfully one of the good superheroes arrived and threw the missile
into outer space, and Lady Licorice offered him some of her licorice
hair as a reward. From that point on he really loosened up and the
rest of the game was a lot of fun, with a ton of laughs being had by
all. It barely seemed like it had been an hour when it was all over.
The host declared that they'd had so much fun that everyone was a
winner, and there was great applause from the audience. Aidan drank
it all in, finally feeling at peace with himself.
Dan
came up to congratulate him after he stepped down from the stage.
“You were amazing up there”, he said, “I always knew you had it
in you.”
“I
didn't”, Aidan replied. “I was terribly nervous at first. It
was a lot of fun, though, I'm glad I came.”
“I
hope you'll come back again sometime”, Dave said, and the others
agreed. “It was a great show.”
“You
should come have a drink with us”, the host offered. He didn't
usually like to drink, but he was in such a good mood that he
couldn't resist. Nicole had to go home to take care of David, and
most of the rest of the crowd thinned out, but Dan stayed behind to
have a drink as well, and they laughed and retold some of their
favourite moments from the show, with the race car bit being a
particular favourite.
He
finally managed to drag Dan away from the bar and the two of them
were about to head home when he saw something that stopped him dead
in his tracks.
“How
could you?”, she demanded, obviously hurt.
“Nisha?!”
he exclaimed, completely shocked. “I thought you were going to see
your parents!” She definitely hadn't been in the audience at the
start of the show, she must have gotten there partway through. His
stomach turned terribly queasy.
“I
did. I was worried because you'd been acting strangely ever since
that day in the park. I spoke to my parents, and I realized you've
just been going through a hard time lately, so I came here to support
you. I got here just in time to hear you insult me in front of
everyone. I get it, Aidan, my dream is stupid and people will just
laugh at it. Thanks for saving me a lot of time.”
“No,
you've got it all wrong!”, he tried to explain, “there's some
humour in everything, that's all!”
“I
was right in the first place”, she said, sadly. “You guys are
all the same, you love attention and the physical side of the
relationship but when things get serious you get cold feet. I
thought you were different, Aidan. I thought you loved me.”
“Don't
be ridiculous, Nisha, of course I love you!”
“If
you paid any attention to me at all you'd know how much something
like that would hurt me. But you've never really been listening. I
don't know what it is exactly that you want, but if you loved me for
who am I you'd know better”. She started to walk away into the
night.
“Nisha,
wait!”, she turned around for a split second, and in that moment a
million different possibilities flew through his head. Could he
honestly tell her about the dream he'd had? Would she just think
that was insane?
In
the end, he opted for the simplest answer. “I'm sorry, please,
just give me another chance.”
She
shook her head. “Don't you think you've done enough already?
Goodbye, Aidan”.
And
with that she walked out of his life, forever.
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