The Curious Case of the Funny Bone

The waiting room smells faintly of antiseptic and borrowed fear. The sort that burns the inside of your nostrils and makes you suddenly aware that every surface in the room has probably witnessed bodily fluids, emotional breakdowns, or someone Googling their symptoms and silently accepting their death sentence before their name has even been called. I don’t know why I’m here. That’s the first thing that unsettles me. Not being here. Just… not knowing. I’ve apparently been sitting in this chair for a very long time. Long enough for the plastic seat to begin moulding itself to my arse like we’ve entered some kind of long-term relationship. Long enough to watch people come and go in a revolving parade of misery, mild infections, and misdiagnosis. The clock ticks loudly overhead. Far too loudly. Every sound in the room feels sharpened somehow. A cough. A sniff. The rustle of magazines nobody has willingly read since 2007. A woman across from me sneezes directly into the air like she’s crop-dusting the vulnerable. Beside me sit two women talking at full volume, completely unbothered by the existence of other human beings. You know the type. People who treat public spaces like their own personal podcast. One of them scrolls through her phone while blathering, flicking casually through photos. Then my stomach drops. Because I recognise the faces. Phoebe. Maxi. Alex. My children. Not similar children. Not “oh that vaguely resembles my kid” children. My actual children. Photos I’ve taken. One of Phoebe pulling that dramatic fake smile she does when she’s had enough of me taking pictures. One of Alex pulling his infamous “Tuna Dog” face. One of Maxi’s left nostril. My heart gives this horrible little stammer in my chest. What the hell? I stare at the phone so long I start looking suspicious myself. I should say something. I have to say something. But how exactly does one casually approach that conversation? Excuse me love, why do you appear to have a full collection of my offspring in your camera roll? I take a deep breath. Then before I can stop myself — I tap her on the shoulder. She turns immediately, smiling brightly. “Hiya love, did ya want something?” God. Why is she being so pleasant? That somehow makes this worse. “Well…” I begin. Damn. In my head this sounded far more authoritative. “I’m… sorry to pry but—” “Mrs Lyle.” The voice booms across the waiting room like the voice of God if God wore scrubs and carried a clipboard. I nearly jump out of my skin. The doctor stands in the doorway. Impeccable timing, as ever. The woman smiles politely back at me as if my near-accusation of child-photo theft is a perfectly normal interaction. “Never mind,” I mutter quickly, standing up. “I’d better go.” Inside the office, the doctor gestures for me to sit. He seems pleasant enough at first glance. Grey hair. Thin spectacles balanced low on his nose. One of those calm, measured voices people automatically trust. The kind of man who could tell you that you had six weeks to live and somehow make it sound oddly manageable. But something feels… off. “I don’t know why I’m here,” I admit. The doctor lowers his gaze towards me carefully. “I think you do, Amanda.” His voice is calm. But his body language is anything but. His pen keeps tapping against the desk. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Relentless. The sound starts grating on me in a way that feels almost personal. I resist the urge to grab the pen and insert it somewhere medically inconvenient. Instead, I smile tightly. “Can you enlighten me?” I joke. The doctor sighs heavily. “Humour,” he says flatly. I blink. “… Sorry?” “You use it constantly.” I frown. Do I? I mean, I’m not exactly doing stand-up at the Apollo. If anything, I consider myself quite serious. Traumatised, even. Just with occasional jazz hands. “It’s a deflection,” he says. “A coping mechanism.” Of course it is. “You can’t heal,” he continues, “if you plaster humour over every wound.” I stare at him. I genuinely have no idea what he’s talking about. Then he folds his hands together. “There’s a procedure.” “A procedure?” “The removal of your funny bone.” Silence. I wait for the punchline. It never comes. He is deadly serious. “Sorry,” I laugh nervously. “The what?” “Your funny bone.” He slides paperwork across the desk. “All you need to do is sign.” I look down at the form. REMOVAL OF HUMORAL DEFLECTION RESPONSE. This cannot possibly be real. “Umm…” I hesitate. “I don’t know if I want to get rid of my funny bone.” The doctor nods solemnly. “It will allow you to heal properly.” “But… won’t I become completely humourless?” “Yes.” He says it in the casual tone one might use to warn me about mild bloating or occasional dizziness. I grip the pen uncertainly. A life without humour. No laughing until I cry. No inappropriate jokes at funerals. No stupid memories replaying at 2am making me smile into the dark. I think about every moment that ever kept me afloat. Every disaster that became funny later. Every laugh that arrived five minutes after tears. Then slowly, I place the pen back down. “I think I’m good,” I say quietly. The doctor’s face darkens instantly. “Good, eh?” he mutters. His pen stops tapping. The silence that follows somehow feels worse. “Well,” he says finally. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” When I walk back into the waiting room, silence hits me immediately. Not ordinary silence. Dead silence. The kind of silence that makes your skin prickle before your brain can even understand why. There are still people here — but nobody speaks. Nobody moves. Every single person sits identically. Legs straight. Hands folded. Faces blank. Staring ahead, gormless and dead behind the eyes. It feels like someone has sucked every ounce of joy out of the room with a curly straw. My stomach twists. The doctor’s words echo in my mind. Removal of your funny bone. Oh my God. Have these people actually done it? Have they all had their funny bones removed? Is there a skip behind the surgery overflowing with discarded funny bones like some grotesque orthopaedic landfill? A man near the radiator blinks slowly. That’s the most life I’ve seen in anyone. As I make my way over to the exit, I pass a woman staring ahead so intensely I briefly wonder if she’s died upright. Outside, the air feels heavy and strangely muted. I immediately call Mat. Straight to voicemail. But instead of his usual message, a dull monotone voice says: “Don’t bother me. I’m sleeping.” A chill crawls up my spine. It doesn’t even sound like him. I call again. Same message. Again. Same thing. “Don’t bother me. I’m sleeping.” Something about it chills me to the bone. Out on the street, everyone looks wrong. A woman passes me. “Morning,” I say automatically. She nods once. No smile. No warmth. Nothing. Just a blank expression, like her personality has been switched to aeroplane mode. Further ahead, I spot a postman. Posties are always cheerful. It’s part of the package. They whistle. They grin. They hand you bills with the enthusiasm of someone delivering winning lottery tickets. “Morning!” I call. He glances at me briefly, nods, and then goes back to rummaging through letters with the emotional range of a damp envelope. My pulse quickens. Nobody is smiling. Nobody is laughing. A couple sit outside a café staring silently into space, sharing an ashtray of mutual disinterest. A man walks directly into a lamppost and simply carries on walking like his soul already left his body three weeks ago. Everyone looks drained somehow. Flattened. Running on 1% battery. Then I see her. Laura. The Welsh one. The absolute lunatic. Out of everyone I’ve ever known, Laura is possibly the funniest human being alive. We met on a hairdressing course when we were barely twenty. She was loud, chaotic and completely unhinged in the most glorious way imaginable. The kind of woman who could light up an entire room by her presence alone. We shared years of absolute carnage together. She had a thing for Royal Marines. Obsessed. We called her The Marine hunter. That woman could sniff out military men from a five-mile radius like some deranged patriotic bloodhound. Most of them fled almost immediately. One bloke I nicknamed Cinderella became so desperate to escape her after a night out that he literally jumped off my second-floor balcony and ran away barefoot. Left both shoes behind. Never came back for them either. To this day, I still occasionally wonder whether he made it home alive or simply continued sprinting across Britain indefinitely. The thing I loved most about Laura was how aggressively Welsh she became when drunk. The more alcohol entered her bloodstream, the stronger the accent got. By midnight she sounded like a normal Welsh woman. By 2am she sounded like an ancient dragon awakening beneath Cardiff — half-welsh, half war cry — entirely incomprehensible. Honestly, subtitles would’ve helped everyone involved. And God, we laughed. The kind of laughter that leaves your stomach aching. Like the time she attempted a handstand and both tits escaped her top simultaneously, like two sandbags making a break for freedom. “Laura!” I shout, waving enthusiastically. She turns slowly. “I can see you,” she says flatly. I stop waving immediately. Right. Okay then. “I haven’t seen you in forever—” “Three thousand one hundred and four days,” she replies instantly. I stare at her. “…What?” “Since June 12th. Eight and a half years ago.” I laugh automatically. Except she doesn’t laugh back. Not even slightly. Her face remains completely still. No warmth. No spark. Nothing. “I didn’t realise it had been that long,” I say awkwardly. “I’d best get going.” That’s it. No joke. No hug. No oversharing. No aggressive Welsh ramblings. She just simply turns and walks away. And suddenly genuine fear grips me properly. Because if Laura can lose her sense of humour… Then maybe this thing is real. Maybe the doctor was right. Maybe everyone really has had their funny bones removed. I stand frozen to the pavement watching her disappear into the crowd and for the first time all day, the world no longer feels strange in a funny way. It feels wrong. By the time I return to the surgery, I’m almost shaking. The receptionist barely acknowledges me. The waiting room remains eerily silent. The doctor calls me in again. He looks serious. Professional. Until I blurt out — “You’ve taken everyone’s funny bones.” Silence. Then suddenly — The doctor erupts into laughter. Full-body hysteria. He doubles over in his chair wheezing. Tears stream down his face. He’s practically hyperventilating. “Amanda—” he gasps. “Oh my God. You are too funny.” I stare at him. I’m not joking. “I’ve made a mistake,” he says finally, wiping his eyes. “I have a new diagnosis.” I open my mouth immediately. “No offence, doctor, but I think you’ve diagnosed enough for one day—” “Gullible,” he interrupts. Then he bursts into laughter again. “Classic case.” I blink at him. “I don’t understand.” “The funny bone,” he says. “Amanda… it was a joke.” I stare blankly. “A joke?” I repeat slowly. “Yes.” “But—” “I was joking.” My brain stalls. “But what about all the people?” I ask. “The waiting room? The gormless postie? Laura?” The doctor grins knowingly. “Ah,” he says. “The power of suggestion.” I frown. “When an idea gets planted in the mind… people start seeing evidence for it everywhere.” He leans back in his chair. “The postman was probably stressed.” I nod slowly. Fair enough. “Your friend?” He shrugs. “Maybe tired. Maybe distracted. Maybe off her meds.” “…Right.” That admittedly tracks. Then suddenly I remember the woman with the photos. “The lady in the waiting room,” I say quickly. “Why did she have pictures of my children?” The doctor pauses. Then smiles gently. “She didn’t.” Cold prickles spread across my skin. “What?” “You only saw children who resembled yours.” “No,” I whisper immediately. “No, they were my children.” “Were they?” The room suddenly feels too small. Too warm. Too bright. The doctor folds his hands calmly. “You came in here frightened, Amanda” the doctor says softly. “Confused. Vulnerable. Your mind started searching for meaning. Patterns. Threats.” I stare at him. “But they looked exactly like them.” He tilts his head slightly. “Yes,” he says softly. “That’s what frightened you most, wasn’t it?” Silence settles heavily between us. And for the first time all day, I genuinely don’t know if he’s right. When I finally leave the surgery, the world outside feels strangely normal again. A woman laughs loudly into her phone. A man swears at a parking ticket with operatic profanity. Life. Messy. Ridiculous. Human. And suddenly I realise something terrifying. Humour was never the thing stopping me from healing. It was the life raft. The thing that kept my head above water long enough to survive the storm. Because laughter doesn’t always erase the pain. Sometimes it just softens the edges enough to keep you going. And maybe that’s enough.