Exponentially divided

The world is a dangerous place.  That's the last thing my mother would tell me before her and dad left me at the airport and flew away.  I still remember her looking back and then looking at dad and then asking the flight attendant how long before takeoff.  I guess that's why I really don't like airports.  Or flight attendants.  And it's not their fault.  How could they know that a couple of parents would abandon their child on Christmas Eve?  I sure as heck didn't know what was going on until the police officer asked me where my parents were.  For the next twenty six years I went to the same terminal and gate, on Christmas Eve, in the hopes that somehow, against all odds, my parents would show back up and tell me a wrenching tale of being kidnapped and their twenty six year journey getting back home.  I will never give up because I believe in hope.  But I also play the lotto every week.  I didn't say I was a genius.  Just hopeful.  My name is Penny Watkins.  I'm a survivor.  I'm also a professional comedian.  For the past two years I've performed in front of more audiences than I care to remember.  I've been heckled so much on stage that a normal person would have gotten issues from it.  In the back of my mind I do care.  I guess I just figure it's human nature to be buttheads.  And I guess way down deep inside I know the truth behind being abandoned at the airport that night.  But I don't let it define me.  In fact, it's because of that pain that I do the one thing for others that I find so hard to do for myself.  I try to make 'em laugh.  They say laughter is the best medicine.  I know a couple of vets that would disagree with that but they're pretty messed up from the war so I give them a pass on that rule.  I do love to see people laugh though.  Especially when I'm on stage.  Especially the ones in the audience who try so hard to not let anyone see how much they hurt inside.  But I can see.  They say the best doctors are the ones who have been sick just like you.  They know how far down you have to go before the healing really begins.  And in some sad way, I can see just how funny I need to be for the ones who need to laugh.  Because deep down inside I want to laugh.  It's the worse feeling not knowing how.  I can fake it.  I can show others how but it just stays buried down deep inside for me.  I remember my adoptive brother always giving me a hard time because he couldn't understand how I could be so funny but never smile.  I also remember how surprised he got when I pulled the gun on him and shot him in the forehead.  I'm just kidding of course.  It was loaded with blanks but he sure did drop a load that day.  Our head mistress yelled "What's going on?" and Johnny was just yelling "I'm hit. I'm hit."  The rest of the orphanage laughed about it but I spent some time in the basement by myself.  I also lost the gun that day as well.  As the story goes,  I was minding my own business and performing on stage in the Hotel Carlton in downtown Buffalo when I noticed the couple sitting in the back of the room.  They looked so familiar yet so unreal.  Could it be them?  Could two of the most uncaring jerks a child could call parents be sitting in the back of the room while I was performing?  I was in the middle of my act when I first noticed them.  I kept my eyes on them and in one terrible and frightening moment I was sure of it.  But they must have felt some safety sitting in the dark in the audience.  A large part of me wanted to run to them and hug them.  Another part of me wanted to find the nearest pair of scissors I could find and watch the horror in their faces as I plunged those shears deep in their aortas.  But that's not who I am.  I'm a comedian.  The only thing I could do was tell my story.  The story of an eight year old girl just wanting to be loved.  The story of being abandoned by two people I trusted most in the world without a clue to what I had done to be left alone.  There was not laughter that night.  Only silence.  As I finished my story I could hear a few nervous giggles but there was a deeper silence from the back of the room.  And the chairs were vacant.  A part of me wants to know why but another part of me never wants to know.  So I will continue to try my best to see others laugh.  And some day I too will laugh.  My name is Rueuhy and I approve this blog.