Challenge all the grains of sand that frame all the oceans of the world to a Laughing Duel.
Do it under a full moon.
That’s for the wolf in you.
Clear your throat.
Then start with a giggle that sounds much like tiny seahorse tails galloping through
the reeds of your vocal cords.
Slap those tiny steeds on their asses and send them full fury against those multitudes of
granulated glass.
Next, throw air filled with exultation from your lungs in lumps of laughter
until your chakras wiggle like loose teeth, then realign.
Now it’s the sand’s turn.
At first, the dunes rumble, quaking like a suppressed chuckle,
more felt than heard,
then as the tide rolls in, laughter bursts on every shore around the world in
waves and waves
as the sands collide with salt and sea.
The innumerable grains gasp and howl with joy.
This is the most fun the sands have ever had!
They twinkle like stars, shatter the night and
warm the stony heart of the moon above.
Not to be outdone,
you take a breath
so deep
that it pulls the oxygen from the papery dry lungs of your ancestors,
all at once.
For a microsecond, your throat has the gravitational pull of a black hole,
pulling matter, space and time toward you.
Your heart skips a beat.
Everything skips a beat.
Then…
You give birth to a guffaw that sets off car alarms in two galaxies and seven dimensions,
startling livestock everywhere,
and birds all hit the sky in a wing-flapping frenzy
on every planet that has birds.
Your face is drowning in tears.
You shake and rock back and forth and laugh and laugh and piss yourself with glee!

The grains of sand are impressed.
The best thing about a Laughing Duel:
everyone wins.

– Victory