It was hot. The club was small and over-saturated with people. And the light. There's no way to explain to the uninitiated how warm it gets under a spotlight. And nerves don't help.
"Hello, Cleveland!" His voice cracked. He wasn't in Cleveland. Until that moment, he'd thought those crickets were just a cliched gag from a cartoon. Yet, he swore it sounded just like a string quartet warming up backstage. Sweat began to trickle down his forehead and he grinned nervously. He ignored his gut instinct because the metallic squeal emanating from the speakers as he leaned towards the microphone let him and everyone else know that "this thing" was beyond a shadow of a doubt "on". He saw the crash and burn hurtling towards him and decided he'd make as big a boom as possible. The audience deserved at least this much.
"So when I was a kid, we played this game called "Red Light; Green Light". You guys know what I'm talking about, right?"
He scanned the crowd as best he could and saw a minute majority nodding their heads. The rest were talking to the rest of their table's occupants or seemingly in a coma.
"Okay, so the way this game works is a bunch of kids get together unsupervised in some sort of playing field, be it someone's backyard or an abandoned lot. Then the kid with the most severe Napoleon complex out of the bunch will weasel his or her way into being the quote unquote traffic light. Then, everyone other than the quote unquote traffic light lines up at one end of the playing field in a more or less straight line. I think traditionally, the quote unquote traffic light is supposed to use a starter pistol, but the whole point of playing 'Red Light; Green Light' is the fact that you and all of your friends are so poor, you've only got your imagination and each other to play with."
He paused for a laugh that only came faintly from the back of the room. He wasn't even sure it was related to him. His stomach dropped like an empty air plane.
"Anyway, so when the quote unquote traffic light says, 'Green light' you go as quickly as you can towards the other end of the field and theoretically you stop when he or she says, 'Red light'. Whoever reaches the other side first whens. But there are always a few kids who take a few extra steps. Sometimes it's inertia; sometimes it's cheating. I used to get vertigo when I was a kid. I was lucky to stay upright. Needless to say, I hated 'Red Light; Green Light'."
A feeble wave of laughter tried its best to surge through the crowd. It died about halfway through the audience. He felt the fuselage beginning to disintegrate. This was the moment of truth. He gave up.
"You know, sometimes I feel like we're all still playing. We don't realize it because the quote unquote traffic light is stuck on 'Green light' most of the time. When little Napoleon finally lets us rest, we're too exhausted to realize we're just playing a game. The whole world takes it cues from an arbitrary system put in place hundreds of years before any of us can remember." He almost shouted this last sentence.
"So we constantly check our clocks. Do you know what time it is? It's time to go. Time to do. Always. Always 'Green light' mode. Then you finally get worn down and right before you disappear, you get the message. It's silent; intangible. But we all hear it and react. Some of us take a few extra steps. Maybe it's some urge to get ahead or just the inertia driving us forward. But either way, you're just getting closer to the end. We always seem to forget that. Every second that ticks by is gone. Never coming back. And we spend them playing this childish game. And look at what we do when we get 'Red light' time. We don't stop to catch our breath. We don't stop to smell the roses and take in the scenery. We look for some way to make our 'red light' time look and feel like our 'green light' time.
"I mean, look at us! We're at a comedy club on open mic night listening to foul-mouthed cretins tell glorified knock-knock jokes. I bet your wife and kids wished you would listen to and laugh at their stories the way you do here. I mean, I know there are less innuendos in your son's day at school and the timing might not be spot on. But it can't be much worse than this. We're not even professionals!
"So what, right? Why should you listen to me babble about a cosmic children's game? Because it's not cosmic. It's unnatural. The only places in the universe where this game is played are the places where humans live. And I use that term loosely. We run ourselves to death, playing the game until we can't play anymore. But there's another option. I choose not to play anymore. I choose to free myself from childish rules because children need someone to set their boundaries for them, lest they hurt themselves or one another. I refuse to let any of you aspiring traffic lights tell me when I can live my life. And by the same token, I refuse to exercise that power over you. I challenge each and every one of you here to grow up and take responsibility for your own life. Let's stop playing games and get back to real life."
The room was silent. He walked off the stage and went straight towards the door. It slammed closed behind him. The sounded echoed through the room as if it were empty and the emcee sat backstage for a moment, dumbfounded as the rest, before he took the stage to introduce the next comedian.
Meanwhile, the man, with the sound of the door still ringing in his head, drove back home to his own fish bowl.
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