The Girl Who Laughed

 There was once a little girl who loved to laugh. She giggled and chortled and guffawed with joy. Any excuse would do. The sight of a flower's head nodding as though in time to the wind warranted a giggle. The feel of a kitten's fur under her hand was really not fully appreciated unless she stifled little shrieks of joy. The sight of babies getting their fat cheeks pinched by old women was enough to send her into peals of chortles.

    But the best laughter of all was when someone told a joke.

    Because, then, it was the kind of laughter that came all at once.

    The kind the jumped out without any expectation.

    A moment of pure, unadulterated spontaneity.

    It was the burst that came from the belly.

    And that, of course, was the kind of laughter that could never be planned.

    For herself, that was.

    But for others? 

    That took a lifetime of learning just how to get them to burst. And when she found the pattern, and got the jokes just right so that everyone she met had their very own moment of a bursting laugh... well, that was when she herself closed her eyes and passed into her next great adventure that began with a sight that caused her to leave this world laughing.

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